Well, That's a First
by WRTRD
Summary: A series of firsts, written as a through story, from 1x01 to 4x23.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Some of the firsts will be canon, some will not.

It's after midnight, and the loft is quiet. Rick Castle is in his office, leaning back in his chair with his feet on his desk, staring gloomily into his Scotch. She turned him down. The cop—correction, detective—actually turned him down. Well, that's a first. Okay, not exactly a first, but a first in his adult life. When was the last time it happened? He takes a sip and ruminates. Must have been in college, before he had money? Because he sure as hell hasn't been turned down since then, not even when the women, whoever they are, find out that he has a daughter and is raising her on his own. In fact, at least in the short term, that's been really good date bait. He's Mister Sensitivity. And short term is ideal, because he's not interested in long term. Done that, twice. Even if it wasn't that long-term, the marriage. Either marriage.

It rankles. Kate Beckett turned down his dinner invitation, even after he helped solve a murder. You'd think she could have gone out for a drink with him, at least. But what did he get? A handshake, for God's sake. A handshake and "It was nice to meet you, Castle." Nice to meet you. The brushoff that a dweeb gets. Not him. He rattles the ice cubes in his glass. The crystal tumbler set him back $80, and the booze? Hmm. Sixteen drinks in a bottle, bottle cost $300, so this nightcap is about $19. He'd have spent a hell of a lot more than that taking her out, even to a bar. Unless she was one of those wine spritzer types. He doubts it.

What type is she, anyway? Not his, that's for sure. Tough. Very tomboyish. Plain pants and shirt. That short hair, no shape. Probably cuts it herself with nail scissors. No makeup. No jewelry to speak of except that watch that looked like it had seen better days. Oh, and some little chain around her neck. So her turning him down is really no big deal. Except it is. Because holy shit, she's sexy. Unbelievably sexy. That little mole under her eye. He'd like to get her out of those very plain pants and very plain shirt and undoubtedly very plain underwear. No, not plain. Maybe very slutty underwear. She turned him down, but when he said, "Too bad, it would have been great," she said, breathing right into his ear without actually touching him, "You have no idea." And when she walked away from him she strutted, with a teasing sway of her ass that he hadn't see before. Oh, yeah, she definitely wears slutty underwear.

And another thing: she does nothing with it, but she's beautiful. And something else, something very else: she's smart. Wildly, fascinatingly smart.

Realizing that he's a little hungry, he goes to the kitchen and fetches a jar of roasted peanuts. On his return trip he looks out the window. It's been pouring for the last hour, and the sidewalks are empty. Not even a cop. When she was a rookie, maybe she walked a beat out there. He might have passed her in the street and not noticed her. Huh.

With his feet planted on the desk again, he goes over and over the past few days. She's gotten under his skin, that Kate Beckett. Detective Kate Beckett.

One hot member of the NYPD.

Packing heat.

Bring on the heat, baby.

His feet land so hard on the floor that he can feel it in his spine. He opens his laptop, creates a new file, and starts typing as fast or faster than he ever has. When daylight comes through the open bookshelves, it startles him. Sun? The rain stopped? And what the hell time is it? Oh. The computer screen tell him it's 6:30 a.m. Shit, he has to get moving, make sure Alexis is awake, make her some toast, pour her a glass of OJ—and he needs coffee. He trots through the living room and goes halfway up the staircase; he can hear movement in her room, so he needn't go up. His mouth feels like Rommel has been waging desert warfare there. The sands of El Alamein have reached his eyes, too. After slicing a bagel and starting the coffee, he goes to his bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. That's better. He's surprised he doesn't look worse. On the other hand, there's a reason he looks this good: he's about to turn his professional life around, big time. He knows it, absolutely knows it.

Much as he adores his daughter, he pays only half attention when she chatters on about how glad she is that her braces are off and she never has to see the orthodontist again and something about a science project.

"Dad!"

"No need to shout, Alexis, I'm three feet away."

"The science field trip. Can I go?"

"Of course you can go, my little Marie Curie."

She shoves a piece of paper and a pen in front of him. "Then sign this, please."

"Boston? It's in Boston?"

"Yes, Dad, hellloooooo. I just told you that."

"Sorry, sweetheart, I didn't get much sleep." He scrawls his name on the bottom of the form and pushes it across the counter to her. "Have a good time."

"I'm not going right now, you know. It's for next weekend."

"Right."

"Dad? I'm going to school now. You should go to bed."

"Good idea. See you later. Dazzle everyone in the ninth grade all day."

"I'll try." She kisses him on the cheek, and vanishes through the front door, her backpack and braid swinging.

If it were manly, he'd skip to his laptop. He does, anyway. It's time to email the Mayor. His buddy, the Honorable Robert Weldon. Time to cash in the chips that he's been holding for some time. Time to propose that he be permitted to shadow Detective Kate Beckett, the model for the detective in the new book—the new series, count on it—for which he wrote the first two chapters this morning. Nikki Heat, of _Heat Wave_. If the book is to be as good as it deserves to be, he needs to do a lot of research. On-the-job research. It'll be an enormous boost for the profile of the NYPD. How could they not let him do it?

"Are you kidding me? You're letting him do this?" Beckett is in her Captain's office, fuming. One shredded vestige of self-control away from stomping.

"I'm not the one," Montgomery says soothingly, as if trying to placate a child in his kindergarten class who's about to go into full-tantrum mode. "The one is the Mayor. The other one is the Commissioner. I'm the one who's way below those ones. This department gets a lot of black eyes, many of them underserved, and this will change that. And that makes everyone happy."

"Everyone but me," she says with a bite. "Sir." She takes a deep, uncalming breath. "And he's a total jerk." She's aware of Montgomery's eyebrows shooting up, but she goes on, undeterred. "The ten-year-old kid who lives next door to me is more mature than he is."

"That may be, but Castle helped solve your case. And may I remind you, he has a string of bestsellers?"

"Don't count on any more. The latest book sucked. He killed off his hero. Idiotic move."

"Ah, so you read it?"

Yes, she'd read it. Stayed up until one o'clock this morning to read it. He'd given her an advance copy, even signed it, which she has to admit was nice of him. She'd told him so, too, but of course that was before she'd discovered that he'd stolen files from her desk. Still, she's not about to let the Captain bait her. Forget it. "Only because he gave it to me. All right. Let him hang around for a week or two. He'll probably be bored by then anyway, and if he's not, I'll put him out in a plastic recycling bin, very appropriate for a writer who's starting to recycle his plots."

"I hope your recycling bin is a lot larger than mine, Beckett. I'm a tall guy."

Son of a bitch, there he is, standing in the doorway, smirking. Well, she's damned if she's going to apologize for telling the truth. "Might need a second one to accommodate your ego, then, Castle." She brushes by him, with a parting, "You have to go fill out a mountain of paperwork or you can't so much as look cross-eyed at me."

"Oh, I'd never look cross-eyed at you. It would destroy the view."

It's so tempting to smack him one. How long is she going to have to put up with this crap? She hopes he writes fast. He must, right? Considering how many books he's already produced. He should be out of here by Memorial Day, at the latest. She will memorialize the occasion with a sensational bottle of wine, which she'll drink at home, soaking in a bubble bath while she reads a good book. Not one of his.

Over the course of the next few weeks and an assortment of cases, he constantly says inappropriate things; fails to follow even simple instructions; butts in during interrogations; brags; never does a lick of paperwork, and is frequently reckless. On the plus side—though it's not that much of a plus since he drives her freaking insane—he is an off-the-wall thinker, frequently with good results. But she and her team had done very well without him and will continue to do so once he gets his ass out of here. That's something that she'll confess to no one, especially Lanie, that she thinks he has a spectacular ass. That's not enough of a plus to offset the minuses, either. She's just giving credit where it's due. Making an observation. She's a Detective, and she's trained and paid to observe. That is all.

And then today, about a month after he started shadowing her, they caught a case in which a city councilman had been shot, rolled up in a rug, and left in a dumpster. Beckett had had to inform his widow, who was also the mother of their little girls. It's the worst part of her job, and it never gets any easier, especially when it involves kids. Each time she's mentally right back at the front door of her house on a cold January night, with an NYPD Detective telling her and her father, in a voice devoid of any emotion, that he's sorry for their loss. "Sorry for your loss," the emptiest phrase in the English language, and she has to say it dozens of times year. When she and Castle had gone back to the car after speaking with the councilman's widow, she'd sighed. She must have looked as dejected as she felt, because he'd said, "You okay?"

She'd been so taken aback that she'd come back with, "Yeah, why?"

And he'd said, quietly, "Can't be easy, breaking that kind of news."

He'd said that. Utterly straightforward. A simple, compassionate summation, and he'd meant it. Well, that's a first, she'd thought. She hadn't known he had that in him. He'd surprised her so thoroughly that instead of replying, "It is, thanks," she'd said, "Well, thanks for not making it a joke." She regrets it, in a way. He'd been decent—more than decent, kind—and she'd sort of thrown it in his face. Well, not really. She'd expressed her gratitude while letting him know that he hadn't behaved well in the past. Thinking it over now, sitting in her apartment after a tough day, she has to hand it to him for handling the situation so so well.

Because what he'd said next was, "Hey, I'm a wise ass, not a jackass."

"Maybe you're not an asshole after all, Castle," she says, raising her glass of wine to him in her empty living room. She takes a sip. Maybe it wouldn't be so horrible if his research weren't finished by Memorial Day. Maybe he could stay until the Fourth of July? Independence Day. And suddenly some unbidden voice in the back of her mind tells her that she might not want to be so independent, after all.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Some chapters will be more serious than the others. This is one of them.

She'd told him this evening. Told him of her own volition. He hadn't weaseled it out of her, or pushed her. She'd simply opened up to Castle about her mother's murder, quietly and unemotionally, at the end of their case. God knows she hadn't intended to, but she had; she'd shared something closely held and deeply private with a man who ignores all boundaries of privacy. Very few people know about it; she's never revealed it to the men she's dated. It's too intimate. It's an open wound. It's no one's business. And yet she'd told him.

Earlier in the day she and Castle had been driving back from interviewing that crap excuse for a cop who is now a sherif in New Jersey, a guy who hadn't done his job on the simplest level, and she'd been seething. Because of him, a woman's body had been hidden in a freezer for five years, and her family had had no idea if she was alive or dead. Her children are eight and six now; the younger one probably doesn't remember her at all.

"I hate cops like him," she'd said on the way back to the city, her hands gripping the wheel so tightly that her fingers had cramped. "Guys like him, things only make sense if they fit in a box. So they make them fit, and murderers go free."

And then Castle had asked seriously, but as if his were a casual question rather than a loaded one, "That what happened to your dad? I noticed your watch. It's your dad's, right? That's why you wear it?"

She'd been relieved that she hadn't had to answer him on the spot: her cell phone had rung, and they'd gone on with the case. Castle figured her father had been the one who was murdered? Fine, she'd thought, let him believe that. She sure as hell wasn't going to talk about it. Except at the end of the day—literally and figuratively the end of the day—she had, and she's shocked to realize how relieved she is. She'd been at her desk and he'd stepped away, but she'd heard him speaking very sweetly to his daughter on the phone. When he'd come around the corner and seen her, he'd said that he'd had a spidey sense that Alexis had wanted to talk to him. She knows better. After working with him for several weeks, she knows better. He's a hell of a father.

She doesn't know much about Alexis's mother except that she's almost completely absent. The convergence of this case—two little girls left motherless, with cops as lazy as the ones that had done so little to investigate Johanna Beckett's death—and of Castle talking to his daughter had compelled her to speak. She'd sat up straight, taken a deep breath, looked at him, and said, "By the way, it was my mother, not my father." And then she'd filled him in a little. What she hadn't told him was that the case had been her obsession for years, until she'd finally had to bury it in a hole deeper than the deepest grave. Her mother's murder had been and still is the dominant force in the shaping of her adult life, for better or worse. Worse, she acknowledges to herself, because it has closed her off emotionally. It's made her tough, and that's the only way she's survived. She's 29, and sometimes she feels as if she's 92. But at least she's made it to 29. There had been days when she'd been afraid that she wouldn't.

Castle had barged into her life, against her will, only a month and a half ago, and yet today she'd discussed her mother's murder with him. Well, that's a first. She still can't quite fathom it, because he irritates the hell out of her. Except when he doesn't, like today. This is something she needs to consider, to turn over and look at in the daylight, but she's not ready for any kind of emotional self-analysis and doesn't know when she will be. And so tonight, when she puts her father's watch and the chain with her mother's ring in her little jewelry box, she puts that thought in with it. She's glad that she'd let Castle in a little, but that's all. Anything more is too unsettling. Terrifying, even.

In a grim corner of the grim records room in the basement of the Twelfth Precinct, Castle drops down hard on a wooden chair. After she'd told him about her mother and had gone home, he'd asked Esposito if he could see the file on Johanna Beckett's homicide. The detective had been indignant.

"You get some skeevy private eye on her or something, bro? That how you found out? Because she doesn't talk about her mom. You hardly know her and she told you? Goddamn hard to believe."

"She did, I swear. Maybe it was this case that did it, you know? Brought it too close to home. I'd say ask her yourself, but don't. I have the feeling she'd be furious knowing that we were talking about it."

Esposito had looked at him for a hard minute, the air around them spitting. "Okay, I'll show it to you. You're a nicer guy than I thought."

He hadn't been sure of the proper or even adequate response, and all he could come up with was, "Thanks."

After threatening him—"If you tell her I did this, I'll make you bleed"—Espo had left Castle alone with the file, which he's holding now.

She'd told him about her mother, something she doesn't do. She'd opened up to him, all on her own, and seemingly without regret. Well, that's a first. A hell of a first. He finally shakes the dust off the manila folder, braces himself, and begins to read. Not long after, he drops it onto the table. It's so thin that it barely makes a sound when it lands on the bare wood. Appalling. He doesn't know what else to call it. Yes, he does. Unconscionable, outrageous, unforgivable, indefensible, disgusting, inexcusable. Johanna Beckett's murder merited only this, a few pieces of paper? There was no obvious motive, but she was in a bad neighborhood so it was random gang violence? Bullshit. Utter bullshit. For starters, just for infinitesimal starters, what gangbanger would leave behind her easily fenced jewelry? And $143 in cash? He's been working with homicide for less than two months, and even he could come up with fifty questions that no one had bothered to ask, not to mention several more plausible theories than random gang violence. Jesus.

The flimsy report states that Kathryn Beckett—they didn't even spell her name right—is 19 and a college student in California. He wonders where. She's whip smart, both parents lawyers. Berkeley, maybe? Stanford? And then what? She must have dropped out, come home. The murder was ten years ago, and James Beckett has been sober for five years, so he'd lived in the bottom of a bottle for five years before. Which means that from her late teens through her early twenties Kate Beckett had had to try to deal with her mother's death as well as her father's drunkenness. She must be 29. And she's leading a team of detectives. Very young to have risen that far.

What must it have been like? He's read the autopsy report three times: her mother had been stabbed, and had bled out. Death was not instantaneous; she must have suffered. That's lifetime nightmare material for her daughter, and he'd bet the royalties from his last best-seller that she'd never gotten any professional help. Kate Beckett see a therapist? No way. He'd grown up with financial insecurity and an unknown, unidentified father, but he'd never experienced the hell that Beckett had. Trying to shake off the horrific images that have lodged in his brain, he returns the file to the box from which Esposito had taken it and goes wearily home to a late dinner with his cheerful daughter. For her sake, he's cheerful, too. Thanks for the acting gene, Mother, he says silently.

Four hours later, long after he'd gone to bed, he's still awake. Before they'd cracked the case yesterday, Beckett had said, "That family, those kids, they need more than just a theory. They need to know. I need to know." She was talking not just about their case, but her mother's. He can't get that out of his head, either: "I need to know." She still needs to know what happened. Maybe he can help. He knows he shouldn't have, but he'd taken out his phone in the records room and photographed the autopsy report. He knows someone. A brilliant forensic pathologist. It'll have to be on the sly, but he can help.

He keeps flashing back on her expression when she'd told him. She'd looked so young and so vulnerable. Nothing like she looks the rest of the time. Her body language had been different, too, and there'd been a slight hesitation in her delivery. And oh, shit, the way he'd said goodbye after that. "Until tomorrow," he'd told her. She'd asked him why he couldn't just say "night" and he'd said because he's a writer, "night" is boring and "until tomorrow" is more hopeful.

And she'd looked at him, said, "Yeah, well, I'm a cop. Night." And walked away.

She's not hopeful? Not that he blames her, but it stops him cold. What a horrible thing to be missing. What's worse that not having hope? He pushes the covers off, pads barefoot into his office, and turns on his laptop. Hope, hope, hope. There must be something. Yes, there it is. Good. Perfect. Okay, it's getting on for 3:00 a.m. The huge flower market on 28th Street opens at six, but he knows a guy there who will probably let him in earlier than that. He'd used him in a Derrick Storm book, thanked him in the acknowledgements, and the guy's sales increased 50 percent. No question he'll open the door for him. He sends a text with his request, figures he might as well get some work done since he's not sleepy, and goes to the kitchen to make coffee. He's in the middle of writing notes for his next Nikki chapter, drinking a second cup, when the florist responds to his text, saying he'll be ready at 5:00.

Not quite an hour. Time to shower, shave, get dressed, and leave Alexis a note that he has to go out but will be back before she has to leave for school. He takes the elevator to the garage, gets his car, and heads uptown. He's a block away from the building when he sees his friend standing outside, holding an enormous vase of flowers.

Castle pulls to the curb and gets out. "Joe," he says, shaking the man's hand. "You're the best. These are fantastic. Can't tell you how much I appreciate this."

He hands him $300, which Joe pushes right back into his hand. "No charge, Rick. It's the least I can do. She must be something, though."

"Did I say anything about a she?"

"Well, if it's for a man I don't know you as well as I thought. Must be quite a guy."

"Yes, okay, she's something. But it's not what you think."

"Uh-huh. The evidence says otherwise."

"You sure you won't take the money?"

"Very sure. Bye, Rick."

"Bye, Joe. Thanks again." The vase is packed carefully in a carton and he stows in on the car floor before getting back in the driver's seat. He retrieves a fountain pen from his pocket, along with a note card that he'd brought from home. He looks blankly through the windshield for a minute, then smiles, nods his head, and writes a few lines. That done, he starts the car and drives downtown. Because traffic is still light, he's in front of Beckett's building in ten minutes, but he waits another five before someone who's coming out lets him in. She really should have a doorman. He could be an axe murderer strolling in. An axe murder with $300 worth of flowers. Her apartment is two flights up; he leaves the bouquet and card on her doormat and goes home, pleased to find that Alexis isn't up yet. He crumples up the note that he'd left her and tosses it in the wastebasket. It's not quite 6:00.

It's 7:15 when she opens the door and almost knocks over the biggest arrangement of flowers that she's seen anywhere but a mobster's funeral. Unlike anything at a mobster's funeral, it's delicate and sophisticated and understated, despite being enormous. The handsome glass vase is holding dozens and dozens of blue irises. She can barely lift the behemoth, but she wrestles it inside and discovers finds a small envelope with her name on it. The handwriting is vaguely familiar, but she can't place it. She pulls the flap up and removes a thick, cream-colored note.

Dear Beckett,

I chose these flowers because blue iris signifies hope. I did consider giving you a flag of Rhode Island, since the state motto is Hope, but figured you'd have no use for it. Maybe you can't use flowers either, but at least they're prettier and easier to deal with than a flag. And they're the best way I can think of to give you hope. I know you're a cop, but what can I say? I'm a writer. I live in hope and wish you could, too.

Castle

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support for this story. It's a great incentive to keep writing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle had unaccountably woken up up at 4 a.m. and hadn't been able to got back to sleep, so he'd gotten dressed and made some coffee. He's at his desk, ordering some shirts online, when the little Rhode Island state flag next to his laptop catches his eye, as it has umpteen times in the last month. He picks it up, for the umpteenth time, and runs his fingertip over the word HOPE, the letters printed in gold on a blue ribbon. If anyone—anyone being his mother or Alexis—ever asks about the flag he'll just say that a fan in Providence had given it to him at a book signing and that he'd been tickled by it. "Don't you think it's appropriate for me?" he'd ask his mother and/or daughter. "Tell me you know anyone who's even half as hopeful as I am." So it's a fib about the fan. God will forgive him.

The truth is that it was Beckett who had given him the flag, four weeks ago, the day after he'd left the iris on her doormat. He smiles as he mentally replays the scene. They're in her car, driving back to the precinct after chasing down a lead that had turned out not to be a lead at all.

"I haven't had a chance to say thank you properly, Castle," she says as she pulls out into traffic. "For the flowers. That was really sweet of you."

"It was the least I could do."

"No, the least you could have done was nothing. And you're not a guy who ever does nothing. I think there are more flowers in that arrangement than I've gotten in my entire life."

In her entire life? Is she kidding? What kind of jerks has she been dating? She should have gotten at least a thousand flowers by now. No, thousands, plural. "I'm honored that you told me about your mom. Must have been hard to do."

"That's exactly why I don't usually do it. But you deserved to know."

He has a feeling she's about to say something else, so he forces himself to keep his mouth shut.

"Thanks for the hope, Castle. And speaking of hope, look in the glove compartment."

"The glove compartment? What is that, like the cop-car equivalent of Pandora's box? Is there hope in there?"

"Open it and see."

He pushes the latch and the door drops down; he peers in and pokes at the contents with his pen. "There's nothing in here but a flashlight, half a roll of Life Savers, and a brown paper bag. Oh, and a subway token. They stopped taking those in 2003. How old is this car, anyway?"

"Check the paper bag. The bag's for you."

It weighs so little that he can't believe there's anything in it, but he tips it over and a little flag about the size of an index card falls out. It's glued to a tiny wooden stick that in turn is glued to a wooden disc that serves as a base for the miniature flagpole. He unfurls it and bursts out laughing. "The Rhode Island flag."

"Interesting that the smallest state in the union is the one with 'hope' for a motto," she says. He sees her eyebrow twitch.

"Thanks, Beckett. This is great."

"My way of giving hope back to you, Castle."

He shakes his head, back in the present. Oh, if only she knew. If only she knew the hope that he harbors. And just then his phone chirps. It's a text from Beckett, telling him there's a body drop and giving him the location. "See you there," he types in return. It's 5:30 a.m. Huh, maybe she'll see _him_ there. She always arrives at the scene ahead of him, but he's ready to go, and with luck he'll surprise her.

She'd gotten the call from dispatch before she'd even had a chance to shower, so she's in a hurry. Not in so much of a hurry, though, that when she lifts her father's watch and her mother's ring from her jewelry box she doesn't also pick up the note that Castle had left with the flowers a month ago. She reads it every morning and every night, even though she'd memorized it the day after she'd found it outside her door. He wanted to give her hope. He gave her hope. She reads it slowly, returns it to the box, and shuts the drawer. She checks the time: it's 5:45, and if she doesn't get moving he'll be at the crime scene before she is, and never let her hear the end of it.

It's 6:00 on the dot when she parks in front of the apartment building. Dammit, there he is, but he's balancing a cardboard holder with two takeout cups in it and he gratitude for the caffeine might outweigh her irritation at not having beaten him there.

"Morning," he says. "Grande skim latte, two pumps sugar-free vanilla."

What? What? He knows how she likes her coffee? Well, that's a first. Nobody knows that. He's never brought her coffee before, either. "How did you know?"

"I'm a novelist. It's my job to notice things." He can tell how surprised and pleased she is, even though she tries to brush it off, and he makes a mental note to bring her coffee every morning for the rest of his life. At work, of course, at work. And what about in bed? Well, he's a writer, and he likes being hopeful.

Still, she's a little cranky this morning. Maybe because it's Sunday and she'd been out late? No. He wants her to have spent Saturday night at home, alone, watching TV or reading, just as he had. When he tells her she's grumpy, she says, "You want to see grumpy? How about the cover art for your new novel?"

"Nikki Heat cover art? That's only available to—"

Before he can finish the sentence, she charges off to the crime scene, but not quickly enough. He'll chase her down over this because his incentive is enormous. She's a fan! There's no other explanation: the only way she can know about the cover art is if she subscribes to his website. Well, that's a first. Katherine Beckett is a fangirl.

When he catches up to her and calls her on it, she blusters that she did it for purely professional reasons. Oh, sure. He tries to get her screen name out of her, but she ignores him. When he gets home he's going to go through the list. So what if it's 1,837,564 people? He's positive that he'll be able to figure out who she is. He wonders if she has a middle name; that's the kind of thing she might play off, isn't it? He'll look up her birth certificate. Public record. He's not prying. Okay, maybe a little, but it's perfectly legal. Perfectly.

But wait. What if she writes fan fiction? She could. She has more than she needs: an insider's knowledge of police work and the seamy underbelly of New York City. And she's smart and terrifyingly well-read. Oh, yeah. She definitely writes FF. He'll find out what her pseudonym is if it takes him until he's retirement age.

"Castle."

"Huh?"

"Pay attention."

She looks peeved. His mind must have wandered for longer than he realized. "Sorry."

"A little girl is missing."

Five chilling words and all his giddiness is shot to hell, but his focus is strong and sharp as tightly-strung barbed wire. A child. Missing. His worst nightmare. The two-year-old had been taken from her own apartment, where her waste-of-space father, an "artist," left her watching TV while he worked with his iPod on deafness-inducing levels. He wouldn't have heard the abductors if they'd announced themselves by screaming into the intercom. It's not a homicide—not yet, anyway, and they're painfully aware that it could be—but they've been called in on the case at the request of the FBI. Specifically, one FBI agent, Will Sorenson, who had worked a case with Beckett back in the day.

They've barely started work when Castle finds out that Beckett and the Feeb are linked by more than a old kidnapping case: they'd dated for six months. The guy's smug and a federal pain in the ass. What had she seen in him, other than proximity? He'd bet anything that Sorenson had never given her flowers. Maybe some crap bouquet that had been sitting in a scum-coated plastic bucket outside a deli all day, but that's all. Furthermore, Sorenson does nothing but insult him. Won't let him sit in on an interrogation and dismisses every one of his theories or observations. "A couple dozen best-sellers doesn't make you a criminologist," he says at one point.

The case is depressing enough, but personally things go from worse to worst: Beckett sends him home. And then? Worst is redefined: when he comes back to the precinct, unannounced, he catches her and the Feeb kissing. It's almost enough to make him walk out, tear up his Nikki Heat contract, and find some other muse. Maybe relocate to New Zealand. But he he has to see this case through. Then he can emigrate. He makes a joke about the kiss; it feels as though he's swallowing cyanide.

He returned because he has an idea about the case, and he thinks—no, he knows—that it's important. When he lays it out, Beckett is interested; Sore and Son, on the other hand, scoffs.

"Really, Kate? We're going to waste time on the insights of Nancy Drew here?"

He's grinding his teeth at having to put up with someone who refers to him as Nancy Drew. Oh. No. Rethink this, he tells himself. Nancy Drew! He suddenly finds the wits to respond, "Is that supposed to be an insult? Because Nancy Drew won every case." He has just enough remaining wits not to add, "Unlike you, you tin-badge snot." Who knew that a fictional detective—a fictional detective other than Nikki Heat—would be his salvation? He sees Beckett stifle a smile. He's back in the game.

That stifled smile sees him through some tough moments over the next 24 hours. The ending of this case isn't happy, it's an unholy family mess, but at least the little girl is alive, unharmed, and back at home. That's something. More than something. He's relieved that Sorenson is history—Beckett had told him earlier this evening. But the upside had the inevitable down: he'd suggested that the two of them go out for a drink, and she'd said no. She had a date. Shit. What if it's someone who sends her flowers?

Why? Whywhywhywhywhy? Why had she agreed to go out with this guy? Okay, he's a highly decorative guy, but he's as compelling as a subway map. Now that she thinks of it—and she is, because she can't really bear listening to him—a subway map is riveting by comparison. Certainly more colorful and complex. He's saying something about "putting you into a fantastic stock."

She almost chokes on an ice cube. What would Castle make of that line? "I can put you into a fantastic stock." For starters, he could run on for several highly entertaining minutes about soup.

Now he's talking about something having an "incredibly good interest rate" and all she can think of is that he has an incredibly low interest rate. She's about to fall asleep into her beet salad. Oh, God, they're only on salad? They have an entrée and dessert ahead?

"Will you excuse me for a moment, Matthew? I'm so sorry, but I have to text my father. I completely forgot. Won't be a second. Sorry to be rude."

She takes her phone out of her bag, dashes off a text, puts the phone down next to her bread-and-butter plate, and smiles. "You were saying?"

Ten minutes later, when she has just speared her first stalk of asparagus, her phone pings. She ignores it.

"Do you need to get that, Kate?"

"No, no," she says airily, waving her hand. "Probably just Dad texting to say thanks."

The next ping comes when she's chasing an elusive baby potato through some sauce. She ignores it. She's chewing the corralled-at-last potato when her phone rings. Matthew raises an eyebrow and she looks at the screen.

"Gosh, I apologize. I'm going to have to take this." She picks up the phone. "Beckett." She waits as she gets an earful. "Yes, sir, I did get the alert for an incoming text." Another pause. "Yes, two texts. I'm sorry, I thought it was my Dad and that it could wait." A longer pause. "I'll be right there, Captain."

"Your Captain calls you at dinner?" Matthew is dribbled very expensive olive oil on his very expensive silk tie.

"I'm afraid so. A break in a case. The dead may be dead, but they really can't wait. I have to run."

Run she does, right through the front door of the restaurant and into a taxi, straight to her apartment. As soon as she's home she pulls off her heels, collapses into an armchair, and makes a call.

"Castle? Thank you. Seriously. I was having homicidal thoughts."

"Must have been a hell of a date, Beckett. That was some text you sent."

"I figured you'd answer the distress call."

"Very big on damsels in distress."

"It was him or me. I was either going to die of boredom or murder him, and neither choice seemed good. Sorry to throw myself on your mercies."

"You can throw yourself on me anytime, Beckett."

"Right. Thanks, Castle. Night."

He races to the fridge and yanks open the door. Yes, yes, there it is, right behind a jar of mayonnaise. A split of very good Champagne. Bubbly for one might be depressing, but not tonight. Tonight he's celebrating: Beckett called him to spring her from a horrible date. Him. Well, that's a first. A hell of a first.

She'd had a shower before her date, but for some reason she has a hankering for a bath. While the tub is filling she wonders what had come over her, anyway? Lanie is always her go-to rescuer, but she'd asked Castle instead? She'd actually texted him and said, "Call me in 10 minutes and get me out of this godawful date"? Except he'd done something even better, texting twice before calling. Okay, so he hadn't followed instructions. His instincts were right. He's a resourceful man. She steps into the tub and imagines Castle in there with her. Well, that's a first. A hell of a first. She smiles and sinks into the bubbles.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you so much for all the support. Season 2, coming up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Every day she wakes up feeling sick. If she didn't know better she'd say that it was morning sickness. She's angry and hurt and betrayed, and there's nothing she can do about it. She knows she needs to let go, but she can't. She stumbles through June, staggers numbly through July, and by the middle of August she's going through a tube of concealer every week to hide the circles under her eyes. After she chases some perp ten blocks down Broadway and has to hold her pants up to keep them falling off onto the sidewalk, she carries half her wardrobe to the tailor on the corner and has him take in the waistbands. She tells herself to eat more, but she has no appetite.

"Damn you to hell, Castle," she says, not for the first time and almost certainly not for the last, as she stands in her kitchen and pours herself a mug of sludge that masquerades as coffee. "You had to ruin me for this, too. With your stupid race-car espresso machine in the break room and beans that come from wherever. And the lattes you brought me."

She's been angry or hurt or betrayed before, but not like this. She has spent the entire horrible summer pushing away the thought, the why. Why is this unholy trinity of agony different than the others? She has always excelled at pushing things away; she could bench press 500 pounds of Things I Do Not Want to Consider. This morning, though, the weight of it is finally more than she can take. It's a ton, it's crushing her, and she has to examine it.

She carries her mug and breakfast bowl of blueberries—all right, saucer, since there are only seven blueberries—to the living room and drops morosely into her armchair. During the last homicide that she and Castle worked on before he'd left for his season-long stay in the celebrichic Hamptons, she'd made it very clear that he was not to touch her mother's case. Hadn't he gotten the point? Of course he had. He'd said, essentially, that he understood. But how long had that understanding lasted? A day, max. The man cannot, will not follow instructions. She'd thought that he was getting better at it, but when it really counted? No. No. And it has undone her.

Now for the really tough part. She winces at letting the acknowledgement flood her brain. It's this: her attraction to him is palpable and thrilling, a rush she'd never known and one that had taken her by surprise. She'd rejected it at first because she loathed his smugness and his bad-boy persona. What's fine in a college guy is not fine in a man his age. But as she gradually realized that a lot of that was a front, she'd started to lower her emotional barriers. Incrementally, but still. Their banter was not just fun but tantalizingly dangerous, bearing the unexpressed/repressed knowledge that it could so easily lead to something else. She's never experienced chemistry like this. It's not just hormones, either, it's everything. He has an astonishing imagination. Sometimes she'd wanted to throttle him for it, or call him out for showing off, but more and more often she'd been dazzled by it. In tiny moments of solitude, she'd indulged herself in thinking that something magical was beginning to happen. And then he'd blown everything apart with one horrific sentence.

"It's about your mother."

He'd delivered that first blow in a hospital corridor, outside Sorenson's room. In his next breath he'd told her that a friend of his, a forensic pathologist, had found important information. Before he could say another thing she'd grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into a tiny, windowless consulting room. It occurs to her now that it must usually be used for the delivery of bad news to grieving families. She'd inadvertently chosen the perfect place.

She'd shut the door firmly and turned to face him down. "Castle, I told you. I don't want to know. So whatever you learned, keep it to yourself."

"Please give me a minute. That's all."

"No."

She'd reached for the doorknob and he'd stopped her.

"Hear me out, please. You were right, Beckett, her murder definitely wasn't random."

What had compelled her to stay? His blue eyes, pleading with her to trust him? The gently persuasive tone of his voice? The electric touch of his hand on her arm? She'd told him earlier that she'd learned to stay away from the case for the same reason that a recovering alcoholic stays away from booze. And suddenly here was Castle, the kindly bartender, offering her a free drink, the best in the house. Just a sip, she'd thought. That's all. But it hadn't been. She'd kept on drinking.

He'd told her about the wound that wasn't like the others, the one that was a thrust straight to the kidney. And then the killer had twisted the knife. That had been the fatal one; all the others had been delivered "for show," after her mother had already collapsed. That's what the pathologist had said to Castle. "For show."

By then she'd been as incapacitated as someone who'd downed a fifth of Scotch in one sitting. She'd been physically incapacitated, incapable of moving, but mentally impaired? Not a bit. Every single word that Castle had uttered had been permanently incised in the limbic system of her brain.

"He told me that on a hunch he'd checked the files in the M.E.'s office. And you know what? He turned up three other stabbings from around the time of your mother's death, all dismissed as random."

She'd finally moved, pressing her hands over her ears and shaking her head. "Stop it. Stop it. Stop." But that hadn't been enough, not to prevent him from telling her more, nor to block out his voice.

"They were all related, Kate. Every one of them. They all had links to your mo—"

"Castle. We're over. We're over. Get out."

"But I can help. Please."

And then she'd slapped him, hard, right across his magnificent face, somehow wrenched the door open, found a staircase, and torn out of the hospital into the spring afternoon that had felt as stifling as a grave.

She'd gone home, changed into a dress, and fled to a dive bar on some bleak side street downtown where she'd literally drunk as much as she figuratively had in that hospital consulting room.

Her next clear and enduringly mortifying memory had been of waking up in her bedroom, still in her dress but minus her shoes. She'd run her tongue over her teeth; it felt as though she'd been licking a subway platform. She'd managed to totter to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and on the way out she'd noticed a glass of water next to her bed. At least she'd been functioning enough to have thought of that.

But she hadn't, as she'd soon found out. When she'd crept towards the kitchen, she'd stopped at the sight of Esposito sitting on her sofa, drinking coffee and reading the paper.

"You're up," he'd said.

"Javi? What are you doing here?"

He'd folded the paper and put it down. "The bartender called me."

"Castle called you?"

"What? No. The _bartender_ , Beckett."

Oh. A real bartender, apparently. Not the fantasy Castle bartender from the hospital. "He did? Why?"

"Because you were wasted. I've never seen you so drunk. You wanna tell me about it?"

"No." No. What she'd wanted to do was drown herself in a vat of coffee and never have to speak again. "Why'd he call you?"

"'cause you were in no condition to leave on your own."

"No, I mean why _you_." He'd looked offended. "Sorry, Espo. I'm a mess."

"No kidding. Okay, the bartender told me he cut you off and you said he had no right. 'You can't order me around, buddy. I'm a cop.' And then he said, 'Actually I can'."

Oh, shit. "And?"

"And then you said, 'Believe me, you don't want to mess with me. I'm a bad, bad, bad-ass cop. Ask Sito. He'll back me up.' Luckily you'd left your phone on the bar, so he picked it up and scrolled through 'til he found a name that looked like Sito, and he called me."

She'd never felt so awkward around him. "Um, thanks," she'd said after a long silence, crossing her arms across her chest. "Thanks for bringing me home. And, you know, waiting here to make sure I was still alive."

"If you were dead I'd have called Lanie."

That had made her laugh, but it had also almost made her head explode. "God."

"Sit down. I'll get you some coffee."

He'd stayed for a bit, and gone home only because she'd insisted on it. It was the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, and he should have been doing something fun, not babysitting a useless, hungover detective.

It had been Memorial Day weekend, and something else: the first day of her life without Castle, and the day she had stopped reading his note about hope.

Now it's Labor Day weekend. She's had day after week after month of life without Castle. She hasn't eaten her blueberries and her coffee is cold. Where has her soul-searching brought her? To this: she's finally acknowledged that she's not only hurt, angry, and betrayed, she's grieving. Grieving for the death of possibility. She longs for him as she's never longed for anything. She's longing to see him, and never wants to see him again.

She always thinks of Labor Day less as the end of summer than the start of a new year, a carryover from her school days. She'd loved starting out in September with a new backpack and new pencils and notebooks. Those were the best: all those clean pages that she'd fill up with all kinds of new things. "Get dressed," she says to her reflection in the smudged window. "Pull yourself together. Put Castle out of your mind. Take a walk. Get a new notebook."

The sidewalks are almost empty on the holiday weekend. With new resolve, she walks and walks, and stops in a little cafe for (good) coffee and a toasted corn muffin. She even chats happily with her young waitress, who's putting herself through college and wants to be a lawyer. "Good for you," she says, and when she leaves slips a $20 tip under her mug. She finds herself window-shopping, something she hasn't done in months. It's fun. She stops in front of Barnes & Noble and looks at the display of the new fall books. They all seem so inviting. And then she sees the poster in the window:

Meet Richard Castle

Thursday, September 17, 6-8 pm.

THE STORM IS OVER AND THE HEAT IS ON!

Oh, hell. She turns around and goes home. She doesn't leave her apartment again until she has to, on Monday, when she goes to work. It's Labor Day. Most people have the day off. Schools and major businesses are closed. The police department is not.

"What's up with Beckett?" Ryan asks his partner as he glances at the glassed-in office where she's flailing her arms as she talks to their commanding officer.

"Dunno. I'd just gotten here when the Captain said he wanted to speak to her. She's in there like ten seconds, and ka-boom."

"Yeah, I can tell. Geez, I haven't seen her that mad since that time Castle sat at her desk without asking and broke the height adjuster on her chair. Man, I wish he'd come back."

Eposito glares. "Do not say it, bro. Do not go there."

"I was just—"

"Pretty obvious she doesn't want him around."

"I know, but I miss him. She must miss him, right? What exactly went wrong, anyway?"

"Didn't know then, don't know now. I need some coffee."

What he really needs is a confessional and a priest to absolve him. He'd let Castle read Johanna Beckett's file and it wasn't long after that Beckett had fallen apart. Right after the plastic surgeon homicide. Weird, too, because that was a Castle-flavored case and he and Beckett had really been clicking. She'd even said to him and Kev—and Montgomery—that she couldn't have solved it without him. The next day she came in looking like she was going to shoot the first person who said good morning to her and when he'd asked if Castle was coming in she'd said no. A few days later, Ryan had asked her out right if everything was okay with Castle. She'd said, "He poked his nose in where he shouldn't. He's gone to the Hamptons for the summer and I hope to hell he stays here." She wouldn't say anything else, and all summer long, he's worried that the place where Castle had poked his nose in was Beckett's mother's case.

Esposito is just sitting down at his desk again when Beckett storms back to hers. "I don't believe it. I don't freaking believe it."

"Cap sending you down to Vice?" Espo asks, hoping to divert her.

"I wish. No. I have to sit down with some reporter tomorrow and talk about how wonderful Castle is, what an asset he is to our investigations, what an amazing member of our team, what a sterling citizen."

"Get you out of here for a while, anyway."

"No it won't. The reporter's coming here. And that's not all." She snaps a pencil in half. "Castle's coming, too, for a photo shoot. The deal I had with Montgomery was that Castle would follow me around to get enough material for his stupid goddamn book and that was it. He's finished the book and he has no right to set foot in here any more."

"Oh," Ryan says.

"Right," Espo adds. They both know better than to say anything else when she's on a tear.

"Plus." Snap. Another pencil meets its doom. "I have to be sugar sweet all day because the NYPD will quote really get a boost with this great free publicity end quote. According to One PP. Oh, and the mayor, Castle's close personal friend." She sits down, logs on to her computer and stays there until she stomps out for lunch.

Three days later she's alone in the bullpen, more tormented than she'd been all summer. It's night, she's trying to lose herself in paperwork from the case they'd closed earlier today. She'd expected having Castle at the precinct again to be bad, but it was incalculably beyond that. It had started with the magazine interview and the appalling photo shoot: there had been the strippers dressed as cops—if cops wore hot pants—draped all over Castle, who'd loved every minute. And the boys? Drooling. Ogling. When she'd escaped into the break room, he'd come in to assure her that he'd had nothing to do with the repulsive little circus. Though that's how she thinks of it; he'd just referred to it as "this." She'd told him that he needn't explain, that she didn't care anymore, and he'd had the balls to protest.

"What did I do that was so wrong?" he'd whined.

It had taken all her rapidly-dwindling self-control not to say, "Are you fucking kidding me? When you told me in May to leave my mother's case alone, did I not explain sufficiently? Did I not slap you hard enough to knock some sense into you? What you did ate me alive all summer, and you don't know? How can that be?" So she'd told him again, and he'd bounced right back with, "But look at what I found."

Very, very briefly she'd thought she'd gotten a reprieve because they'd caught a body. But then Castle and the gushing suck-up of a reporter had tagged along, with the Captain's effusive blessing. The instant she'd arrived at the scene he'd run up to her and and brought it up yet again.

"How many times and ways do I have to say no, Castle? Don't you get it?" She'd pitched her voice so low that no one else could have heard it, even Ms. Bat Ears from _Cosmo_. "I've told you and told you. Chasing my mother's case almost killed me. I was in a hole so deep that light couldn't get in at high noon. And you want to shove me back in there? You're used to getting your own way, you push and push until you do, but not this time. Leave my mother alone. Leave me alone."

Montgomery had insisted that Castle go on to work the new homicide—of an apparently responsible family man who became a drug mule after losing his white-collar job—but she'd made a side deal with her erstwhile partner. At the end of it, he'd be gone forever. He'd agreed. All to the good? No. Because as soon as they'd started building theory together, as soon as they'd fallen back into perfect synch, she'd wanted him again. The physical, emotional, intellectual magnetism was still there, as strong as before. Her resistance had been evaporating quickly, and at the end of the case their banter was as good as it had ever been. She'd been on the verge of asking him if he'd like to get a drink when he destroyed everything again, just as he had in the hospital all those months ago.

She'd been sitting at her desk and he'd been standing next to it. Out of the blue he'd said, "It's because you're afraid, isn't it? You're afraid that if you look into your mother's death, that you'll go back down that rabbit hole and lose yourself again. But it's different this time. We have good leads. We have strong leads. And you won't have to do it alone. We can do it together."

His words had hit her with such force that for a moment she'd thought that something had landed on her head—a ceiling tile, maybe, or a rock hurled through a window. He's never going to give up. He'll hammer and hammer and hammer at it. And she can't bear it. She can't.

"What if I don't wanna know?" she'd said to him. "Did you ever think of that? What if I'm not ready? What if the idea of catching my mom's murderer and then having to sit there and watch as he cuts some deal that puts him back out on the street in ten years makes me nauseous? You dredged up my past for you, Castle, not for me, and you're too selfish to even see it. The case is closed, Castle. We made a deal, and I expect you to honor it."

He'd left without a word. The wordsmith caught short. He'd looked shattered, but no worse than she'd felt.

Had felt then, and still feels now, hours later, at her desk. The desk he'll never sit next to again in his rickety chair, driving her nuts and making her silently swoon. Goodbye to all that. Goodbye. Goodbye, Castle. She wants to weep and she wants to scream. She wants to say, "Come back," and, "No, don't." To say, "Yes, do. Do come back." But she can't. He will be the death of her.

She'll go home. It has far fewer associations with him than the precinct has. There are no ghosts of him in the apartment as there are here. She has one more page to read and then she'll get out. But she senses rather than sees a shadow, or a slight movement. Is someone else working late? She looks up. It's Castle.

"I'm sorry." he says quietly. "What I did was wrong. I violated your trust, I opened old wounds, and I did not respect your wishes. And if we're not gonna see each other again, then you deserve to know. I'm very, very sorry." He turns and trudges towards the elevator.

How rapidly does the brain process an apology? How quickly does it forgive? It must be at an unimaginable speed, because before he reaches the end of the hallway she calls out to him. "Castle? I'll see you tomorrow."

Maybe her brain wasn't involved at all, maybe it was just her heart.

She has no idea how long she stays at her desk. Not working, barely thinking, just taking what happened and rolling it over and over like a piece of white quartz that she might have found at the beach. The edges have been smoothed off and the small stone is warm against the skin of her palm. She folds her fingers around it, and then opens them again. It catches the light.

Even though it's past midnight, she walks home. All the way there she thinks about what he'd said, how simple and contrite it had been. He'd apologized, and he'd meant it. "Well, that's a first," she murmurs, as she steps through her front door. When she goes to her bedroom, she opens the little box, lifts the chain from around her neck and unstraps the watch from her wrist. And before she closes the box for the night she takes out Castle's note from last spring, and reads it for the first time in three and a half months. She has hope. Again. And this time it might stick around for good. Who knows? She might even drop in at Barnes & Noble next Thursday, and introduce her newly hopeful self to Richard Castle.

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks again to all of you who are coming along for the firsts.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This is set sometime between 2x03 and 2x04. It's entirely outside canon, but seems reasonable to me!

Castle is so wound up that he's almost flying off his chair. "So, how long? How long?"

"How long what?" Beckett asks, seated properly at her desk and more than a little worried that his chair could fall apart beneath him.

"How many hours will it be?"

"Well, gee, Castle, I don't know." She speaks to him in the same tone that she'd use on a one-year-old in a baby bouncer. "It's a stakeout. We don't know how long the bad man will stay inside before he decides to run away."

"No need to be cynical," he says with a pout, before his enthusiasm returns. "I've never been on a night-time stakeout. Do you blame me for being excited? Shadowy figures, unexplained noises, who knows what."

"Don't get your hopes up. It's not usually very exciting, watching a door."

"Says you." He stands and pulls on his coat. "I'm going home, but I'll be back at eight. Or could you pick me up, please? It's just, I'll have stuff."

"Stuff? I'm afraid to ask."

"Good, because I want to surprise you."

"I hate surprises."

"You won't hate these. Bye."

For the last hour she's been reviewing the case file and making notes on the drug dealer they'll be keeping watch on tonight, but her mind keeps drifting to Castle and his stuff. Not that stuff, she mutters, and blushes. But what could he possibly be bringing? She's flicking a pencil against her teeth. Ah. Gadgets. That must be it. Night-vision goggles? A fountain pen that's really a voice recorder? He's so engaged with them. A six-foot-two boy and his toys. She'll never let him know, but it's kind of adorable. The only stuff she needs for the stakeout is coffee, and since it's time for her to leave she gets the Thermos bottle that she keeps in her bottom desk drawer and fills it in the break room. On the way out she makes a quick trip to the ladies room and she's set.

There's a cold drizzle—it's chilly for the middle of October, and heavy rain is forecast for later—when she turns on to Broome Street shortly before eight. She's early, so she's surprised that he's already in the lobby, holding two very large canvas tote bags. He sees her before she can even signal him, and jogs out to the car.

"I know I didn't tell you exactly how long this stakeout might last, Castle, but definitely not more than eight hours. Why are you packed for an ocean voyage?"

"If I were packing for an ocean voyage, Beckett, I'd have a steamer trunk. Give me some credit."

He has a steamer trunk?

"Yes, I have a steamer trunk."

"I didn't ask."

"Better watch out, because I can read your mind. When I was in college some kid left it behind so I helped myself. And when I started writing and had no money I used the trunk as a coffee table and a desk. I might even have used it as a bed on a few drunken occasions."

"Fine. What do you have in your not-steamer-trunk bags?

"For starters? Snacks."

"Snacks. Of course. The number-one item in the Richard Castle Survival Guide."

He sniffs. "Please. Not even close."

That's hard to believe. The man is a grazer. "Hair products?"

That's met with another sniff. "Good grooming shouldn't go out the window even if civilization is going down the tubes. But no, hair product is not the first item in my personal survival guide." He gives her a look that's the visual equivalent of "are you witless?" and sighs heavily. "Bug spray."

Bug spray? She can't help it: she guffaws. "Sorry. Sorry, Castle. I'm not mocking you. Well, I guess I am, but seriously? Your main concern is insects? What about if you had to survive in the dead of winter? Insects wouldn't be a problem."

"I'll have you know," he says, looking and sounding affronted, "that the arctic cockroach can survive temperatures as low as sixteen degrees Fahrenheit."

She pulls out into the street, and takes the first turn north. "How about we return to the happier subject of snacks. You said that for starters, you have snacks."

"Well, they should be starters, like for a whole meal, but I couldn't really manage that. Anyway. I've got salted and unsalted crackers. Cheese. Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of cutting it up into bite-size pieces and putting them in a zip-lock bag. Edamame, also in a zip-lock bag for obvious reasons. Then, let's see." He stops to look in the bags before continuing his menu recitation. "Two turkey sandwiches on rye, two PB and J on white, two Honeycrisp apples, a box of Oreos, a bag of gummy bears—which you can use for chips if we have time to play cards. Oh, I bought a pack of cards. They have numbers that glow in the dark. Cool, right? I've been dying to try them out. Then, let's see, six bottles of water. Oh, and a ballpark-size bag of Cracker Jacks."

"You do know there are only two of us on the expedition, don't you?"

"Sure."

"Cracker Jacks?"

"This stakeout? I'm in the big leagues now. Seemed appropriate. Besides, you love baseball, so I naturally inferred that you love Cracker Jacks."

"I do." She does love Cracker Jacks, and he thought to bring them. She smiles and hoists the Thermos. "I brought coffee."

"Big surprise, Beckett. But we're not drinking out of those horrible plastic cups that come with the Thermos. I brought travel mugs. And sugar-free vanilla, since I figured you wouldn't."

"I have to say, Castle, I'm impressed," she says, glaring at the BMW driver who just cut her off. "Looks like you thought of everything. Thanks."

He looks briefly worried, and begins rummaging in his bags. "Oh, good, I didn't forget."

There's more? What else could he possibly want or need? Need can't conceivably be a factor, but want? Yes. "Didn't forget what?"

"My jammies."

"Your jammies? What, Doctor Denton's with the feet and the drop seat?" Thank God it's dark in the car. If he'd seen her (involuntary) expression when she said "and the drop seat" she'd be in deep and serious trouble. "Where were you planning to change?"

"In the back seat."

"Aha. Silly me."

Half an hour later they're settled in about a hundred yards from the drug dealer's house, and the rain has developed to hard and steady. For this assignment she'd borrowed a car with a beat-up body, a patchwork paint job, and a perfect engine. They're parked in a vacant lot that's the final resting place for at least a dozen old cars, blown-out tires, broken bottles of rotgut, discarded condoms, and hillocks of unidentifiable debris.

"You hungry?" he asks, one eye on the door across the street.

"Not really."

"You mind if I have something? Surveillance makes me hungry."

"Nope. Besides, you're the one who made the picnic."

"I'd have brought wine, too, but we're on the job." He reaches into one of the bags, gets a sandwich, and unwraps it. "This is actually better than a real picnic," he says after polishing off half the sandwich. "I don't have to use insect repellant."

She purses her lips and says, "Hmpf."

"Hmpf?"

"Hmpf, as in I wouldn't be too sure about that if I were you. There are probably cockroaches the size of rats running around under the car."

"You know, you're really making it hard for me to enjoy this sandwich. Don't kid about insects."

"I'm not. Don't kid about rats, either."

He drops the PB&J onto his lap. Even in the low light she can tell that he's blanching. "Rats? Please tell me there no are rats under this car."

She pointedly checks her lipstick in the rear-view mirror, though she can't see much. "Probably not. You know, I borrowed this car from Gangs. Last detective who used it was a lunatic named Slaughter. There's a hole in the trunk where he shot at a suspect he'd locked in there. Apparently he said, 'I wasn't trying to kill him. I just wanted to scare the little bastard'."

"Nice bedtime story, Beckett. I hope you tell better ones when you have kids."

"Told it to you for a reason, Castle. Just to let you know that a rat might get into the trunk through the hole that Slaughter made. If you're going to change into your jammies you might not want to do it in the back seat. A rat could chew right through the upholstery in this heap."

The squeak he unleashes is similar in pitch to a rat's, but a great deal louder.

"Castle?"

"Shit, did you see a rat?"

"I was just kidding." She accidentally pats his hand. Not accidentally, just not deliberately. Her hand, of its own accord, reaches over and pats his, soothingly. It even wraps around his for a few seconds. Oh, my God, he has soft skin. She should be panicky; instead, she hopes that it might happen again. Well, that's a first. Still, she quickly withdraws her hand. "Not about the hole in the trunk, but it was only from one bullet and it's been patched. No rat's going to get in here."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Maybe we could change the subject."

She feels a little guilty about having teased him, except she'd had fun. It's not as though he doesn't give her plenty of grief. But he had seemed genuinely unnerved. And he'd brought her Cracker Jacks. And sugar-free vanilla for her coffee. Some kind of apology is in order, so she'll give him an out. "You know, Castle, you really don't have to stay. It's boring and creepy here, but I'm used to it. You could be home with Alexis."

"No, this is gonna be fun. Eventually. Besides, my mother's home with Alexis. I made Mother swear not to have any friends over."

His voice is heavy on that one word. "Friends?"

"Yeah, you know, friends." He raises his eyebrows.

"Ah. Did it cost you anything?"

"You bet, since it was last-minute and a Friday night. Two very expensive bottles from France, one wine, one perfume. Not that she doesn't adore her granddaughter, but she does know how to extract things from me. She could have had a great career as a blackmailer."

They're stuck watching the house for ages. Nothing changes, there's no movement. "Wanna play cards?" Castle says, around 1 a.m.

"Thought you'd never ask."

"What's your pleasure?"

"My pleasure? To be home in my bed."

"That would be mine, too. Your bed."

"Shut up and deal, Castle."

"What are we playing?"

"Gin."

"For money?"

"That or gummy bears."

"Uh." He rifles through the plastic bag that's holding the litter from their inside-the-cop-car picnic. "Sorry. It seems that I ate them."

"All?"

"Well, yeah."

"Money it is, then."

Shortly before 2 a.m. he yawns deeply. "Sorry. I promise I'm not bored."

"That's a relief. I'd hate to be the instrument of your death by boredom. We'll call it a night for the game."

"That's just because you're beating the pants off me, Beckett."

"Your pants are still on, but the game isn't. Let me check the score." She squints at the scrap of paper. "You owe me seventeen dollars and thirty-five cents."

"Do you take checks?"

"No."

"You have change for a hundred?"

"Also no. But I expect payment in full on Monday."

"'kay."

And just like that, he's asleep. Castle had been right, the stakeout was fun. Hard to believe, but true. She keeps stealing looks at him. For such a restless guy, he's a remarkably peaceful sleeper. He hardly moves and he doesn't snore. A man who doesn't snore. That's good. Shut up, Kate.

She wishes he had put on his jammies. He'd look cute. God, what was in that food he'd brought? Maybe it was the peanut butter. Makes her feel kind of sentimental. Soft-hearted. He has a soft heart. Really. He does. That's a surprise, that he has such a tender side. He keeps it hidden most of the time, although lately it's been peeking out.

Peeking. She wants to peek at his jammies. Probably silk. Navy blue. Wildly expensive. Something soft against his soft skin. Stop it, Kate.

He's sleeping soundly, and won't realize that she's checking. She can open a bag with more stealth than anyone she's ever known. If pickpocketing had been taught at the Academy, she'd have had a perfect score. Were it an Olympic sport, she'd be at the top of the podium, gold medal hanging around her neck.

The bag is between them, resting on the center console. Using just the tips of her fingers, she moves things around until she can find the jammies. Ah, there they are. Oh. Not silk. Not silk at all, and not navy blue. The top is a plain gray tee shirt. The bottoms are light blue cotton flannel, covered in bright yellow rubber duckies. Each is surrounded with three words, "you're the one." She finds that so oddly touching that her eyes fill up. She wipes away the tears with the back of her hand, and checks the time.

Forty minutes later, it's the end of the watch. What a waste of eight hours, she thinks. For the case, that is. Maybe not for her.

"Castle? Wake up."

"I'm awake!" He sits bolt upright. "Did he come out? We going after him?"

"Nope, we're going, period." She turns on the ignition and begins easing the car out of the lot. "It's four o'clock. The next shift is waiting a block away."

"Damn."

"I told you nighttime stakeouts aren't usually exciting."

"Okay. But it was kind of fun, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was. Especially the you owing me seventeen dollars and change part."

"This is the last time I play with glow-in-the-dark cards. I think you jinxed them."

"Good to hear you accepting defeat like a man."

It's Saturday and dawn is a long way off, so the West Side Highway is almost deserted and she drops him off at home quickly. "Thanks, Beckett," he says, as he picks up his bags and gets out of the car.

"See you Monday, Castle. And thanks for dinner."

He watches her drive away. She'd thanked him for dinner. Dinner! Had this constituted a date? A dinner date? No cooked food, no wine, no candles, no waiter, revolting landscape. Best meal ever. Well, that's a first. He'd do it again tomorrow, if she asked. the taillights of the car have disappeared, and he walks happily into his lobby.

She's amazed to find a parking spot almost directly opposite her building. She'll return the car later in the day after she's had some sleep. No one's going to steal this hunk of junk off the street. She unlocks her lobby door and walks up the stairs to her apartment. When she steps inside, she's still humming, "Rubber ducky, you're the one."

TBC

 **A/N** The next chapter will take place during 2x04 and 2x05. Thank you again, everyone. You make this all worthwhile.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

There's almost no one around, so it should be all right. The shift changed an hour ago, and most of the late crew is already out. He takes one more quick look and is relieved: the only people here at the moment are guys. It's safe. He turns right, walks down the empty, dimly-lit corridor, and stops in front of the door.

Even as a 13-year-old, when he was very, very sexually curious, he hadn't dared do this. He knows plenty about sex now, way more than plenty, although fortunately his curiosity is unabated. But this? This is still terra incognita. Virgin territory to him. His inner 13-year-old chuckles. For decades he's wondered exactly what goes on in here, other than the obvious. Do they really gossip as much as people say? Give away secrets? Discuss things that would make him blush? It's a place of deepest mystery. He grips the doorknob, turns it slowly, and tiptoes into that sanctum sanctorum, the ladies' room.

Well, that's a first. And it has nothing to do with sex. No, actually it does, in a way.

For just a slip of a second he's disappointed that the room is so uninteresting, with faux marble partitions and a bunch of notices Scotch-taped to the beige walls. The feeling dissipates as soon as he sees what he's most interested in: the door to one stall is shut. There are no feet visible under it, though there's a familiar black bag on the floor. He steals into the adjacent stall and peeks over. He knew it. He knew it! There she is, in that black leather jacket and bright red top, a color combination that he wishes she wore more often. With her knees pulled up she's flicking through the galley of _Heat Wave_ , so determined that she hasn't sensed that he's only inches away from her.

"Aha!"

Beckett gasps. Her face is one of utter terror, even though she quickly tries to hide it.

"Castle, what are you doing here?"

What is he doing here? Confirming what he suspected, that's what. "I knew you were reading it."

"I…wa…"

Well, look at that. She's flustered. Cool, calm, unflappable detective Beckett is flustered! Is she aware that her face is now the same color as her shirt? He's caught her red-handed and red-cheeked. "It's on page a hundred and five, by the way."

"Wh—. What?"

"That sex scene you're looking for. And Agent Gray was right. It's steamy."

"I wasn't—"

Oh, yes, she was. She most certainly was. And that's something that will warm him on cold winter nights that are not far off. "See you tomorrow," he says, and saunters away, making sure that the door clangs shut behind him. He waits a minute before opening it again, as quietly as he had the first time. A moment later he looks over the partition again, just as he had before. She's smiling, her fingers at her lips, and so engrossed that she doesn't see him.

"Did you get to the part where she's unbuttoning his shirt?"

That startles her so much that she drops the book, which hits the tiled floor with a thwack. "Dammit."

"Lucky thing it didn't fall in, Beckett. It's not water-proofed, and I don't have another copy."

Oh, there's the glare he knows and has come to love. "I could kill you, Castle."

"But you wouldn't. This time I really am going. Night."

He goes straight to the elevator, and when he gets outside decides to walk home. They'd closed a case today, which is satisfying. Beckett's secretly reading his book after denying it, which is even more satisfying. He's on his way to Broome Street a happy, happy man.

For days afterwards there's no new case, and no real reason for him to be at the precinct, other than to stare at Beckett which he likes and she doesn't. He misses her. How long can this homicide hiatus last, anyway? It's driving him crazy. And then he has an idea. He picks up his phone.

"Castle?"

"Hey, Beckett."

"Is something wrong?"

"Why would you think that?"

"I'm a cop. Phone rings at midnight I naturally assume it's bad news."

"I love your optimism."

"I love my sleep, so unless this is urgent, call me back in the daytime."

"I have an invitation."

"To your Hallowe'en party? Already got it. Guy dressed as the Grim Reaper dropped them off for all of us at my desk yesterday."

"Another invitation. Wanna go to Washington?"

"Excuse me?"

"Washington. D.C. You know. Our nation's capital. Home of the White House, which Barack Obama and his family moved into earlier this year, the Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court, the"—he stops just before saying the F.B.I., which evokes unpleasant memories—"uh, the Pentagon."

"Pentagon's in Virginia, Castle."

"Right, technically it is. Anyway, want to come? I'm taking Alexis next weekend and my mother has bowed out. It would be a shame to have her room reservation go to waste." It belatedly occurs to him that since he just came up with this idea he has no reservations at all. What if there's some kind of convention that's gobbled up every hotel room in the city? Funeral directors? Dentists? Lego designers? He'd like to go that one, if there is one.

"That's really nice. Thanks, Castle. But I have plans with my Dad. Going up to his cabin and hiking before fall's over."

"He has a cabin? Don't tell me you're an outdoors woman? Can you skin a bear with your teeth?"

"Spent every summer there when I growing up. I steer clear of bears, but I could probably catch a fish with my teeth."

You could catch me with your teeth, he does not say, as he pictures her in a skimpy tee shirt and skimpier cutoffs, standing in water up to her bare thighs. "Guess I can't lure you away with a promise of an insider's tour of CIA headquarters?"

"With your magically appearing and disappearing Agent Gray?"

"The very insider."

"Sorry, no. Listen, Castle, you may not have to get up at six, but I do. Night."

"Night, Beckett. Fishy dreams."

The next day the homicide drought ends, which turns out to be his second reason for rejoicing before breakfast. The first comes when he's woken by a persistent ring of the doorbell. It's his agent, Paula Haas, with the stunning, exhilarating news that he's the prime candidate for a big, fat three-book deal to relaunch the James Bond series. He's still trying to absorb the information, with the red-lipped Paula in full nasality, when Beckett calls with word that there's a body. It doesn't get better than this, he thinks, after he ushers Paula out and gets dressed, even though he's late to the crime scene and has to endure some less-than-good-natured leg-pulling as a result.

The vic is a young Eastern European immigrant, and he feels cocky early on when he's right in insisting that the Czech candy wrapper in her pocket is a clue. But his overall giddiness on this rose-colored day begins to evaporate when they find her—Eliska Sokol's—tiny, depressing apartment. Over the course of the next two days, things get decidedly worse. Eliska, a housekeeping employee at a high-end apartment building, had been fired for being "overly familiar" with a couple's little boy. The stay-at-home mom, Melissa Talbot, who seems to be a very nice woman, had just wanted someone to speak with Eliska about it, not to toss her out. Her arrogant doctor husband, on the other hand, doesn't seem at all upset. It gnaws at Castle a little. The guy looks shifty. His eyes are too close together.

Turns out it's not just this eyes that are too close. The doctor had been very, very close with the vic. They'd met when she was working at the hospital where he's on staff, and they'd had an affair. He claims—not that Castle believes a word of it—that he'd told her it was over and tried to buy her off, but that she'd thrown the money in his face. He alibis out, and Beckett says he's not the guy, but Castle still doesn't believe him. It doesn't sit right. It's not his spidey senses telling him this, it's his parental ones. They find out that Eliska has an ex-husband, Teodor Hajek, with whom she'd spilt up after the death of their little boy. A little boy who would be about the same age as the one with whom she was "overly familiar." What if the slime ball doctor had been the father of that kid, too? There's a wrinkle, a really promising wrinkle, but he keeps it to himself.

But it's the night of the Nikki Heat book launch, and he tries to put the case out of his mind. The party's a smash, and the prospect of a Bond franchise is making him giddy. He'd thought his giddiness had peaked, but then he sees her. Beckett. She's wearing a blue dress that could be mistaken for skin if skin were that color. He's seen her dressed up a few times, but never like this. Drop-dead gorgeous. And the legs. She's by the table where the books are displayed, her Olympian goddess legs also on display. He watches her pick up a copy of _Heat Wave_ , scan the back, flip it over, and look inside.

"Hey," he says when he reaches her.

"Hey. I—I was just, uh. The uh, the dedication, wow. Thank you."

Oooo, Beckett is flustered again. "I meant it. You are extraordinary."

When she beams at him, his mood impossibly soars—only to plummet a few moments later when their conversation unaccountably and precipitously turns into a sniping match. She asks him if he's heard anything about the offer and he says yes, he has; does she think he should take it? In the space of a few breaths it degenerates to this.

"There really wasn't enough to the character of Nikki Heat for more than one novel anyway," he says.

And she bites back, "Oh, there's plenty to the character. She just needs a better writer."

At that point they angrily part ways. He keeps track of her long enough to see that she's gone to talk to Espo and Ryan. After he tosses down a glass of Champagne and signs three more chests, he looks for her again and just catches sight of her leaving the party. Oh, hell.

Beckett storms out of the elevator and across the hotel lobby. As soon as she gets a cab—and there damn well better be one since it's now raining and she doesn't have an umbrella—she's going to text Lanie and let her have it for talking her into spending a week's salary on this stupid dress. And as soon as she gets home she's going to take it off, put on a tee shirt and order fabulously greasy Chinese takeout since she never got any of the stupid hors d'oeuvres at the stupid party. And by the way, Castle needn't bother coming in to finish the case since he has that stupid obsession with that stupid doctor. Let him fly off to London and irritate the crap out of some British detective he wants to put in his stupid new Bond-Lite book. Fine with her. Better than fine.

Dressed in a ancient Yankees tee shirt and some leggings with a hole in one knee, she eats six steamed dumplings, an entire order of mu shu pork with pancakes and plum sauce, and some chocolate chip cookie dough out of a tube that she'd bought last year when she had a brief and unrealized hankering to bake something. Feeling as though she's in some kind of culinary stupor, she falls into bed.

"What's this?" she asks Ryan, pointing to a large cardboard box that appeared on her desk while she was getting some coffee. It's addressed to DETECTIVE NIKKI HEAT, 12TH PRECINCT. No stamps, no return address.

"Dunno."

"Did you see the person who left it?"

"Yes, weird guy."

"Geez, Ryan, could you be a little more specific? This could be a bomb."

"Nah, they checked for that downstairs. Sarge let him up."

She's grinding her teeth uncomfortably. "Ryan. Description. Now."

"Old guy. Very good posture though. Red cheeks, little gray mustache. Pin-striped trousers, morning coat, black shoes, bowler hat, furled umbrella. Oh, and a monocle. He left the package there, tipped his hat, said, 'Cheerio,' and that was it."

That son of a bitch. Castle. It has to be Castle. Only Castle would do this. She hasn't seen him since the _Heat Wave_ book party, six weeks ago. Very gingerly, she peels off the tape that's stretched across the top of the carton, pushes back the flaps and looks inside. It's a food basket, wrapped up in blue cellophane and tied with an enormous red bow. She lifts it out. The first thing she sees is a bag of what look like muffins. There's a gift tag attached. "Don't be a strumpet, have a crumpet!" Nestled next to that is a box of English breakfast tea, with a neatly written label. "It's in the bag! And sooooo much better than coffee." How much of this is she supposed to take? She'll look at one more thing, that's it. She pulls out a paper bag printed with black and white sheep; inside are dozens of striped candy mints. She braces herself for the tag. "Bah, humbug." Clever, very clever, Castle. Got it. Those candies are humbugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Her cell phone is ringing. What? "Uh, Beckett."

"Beckett?"

"Esposito?"

"Yeah. Where the hell are you?"

Where the hell is she? Holy shit, in bed. She's not in the precinct opening a box of English snacks, she's in bed, in New York City, probably still digesting a boatload of Chinese food, if the fuzzy inside of her mouth is any indication. "Sorry. Guess I overslept."

"You have one too many at the party?"

"Something like that." One too many conversations with Castles is what.

"Shift started forty minutes ago, I was gettin' worried."

"Be there in half an hour. Thanks, Javi. Cover for me if the captain's looking, will you?"

"Done."

She plods to the bathroom and turns on the shower. She finally had a dream about Castle, and he wasn't even in it. Well, that's a first. And she doesn't like it, one bit. Why couldn't she have dreamed about him when she still wanted to? Not now, when he's going to England to write double oh freaking seven.

To her surprise, not to mention irritation—bah, humbug!—Castle appears at her desk two hours later, as if they'd never had words the previous evening. To her much greater surprise, by the end of the day they've closed the case and are back on good terms.

"You were right, Castle, the scum doctor did do it. You should be happy."

"Not happy, Beckett. You know, at first I thought maybe he was the father of Eliska's baby who died. But no. He was way worse. He was the man—the doctor—who stole a baby. He stole a healthy baby in the hospital nursery and switched it with his own, knowing that his own had a fatal disease. So first he ruined the life of Eliska Sokol and her husband, and eventually he took the life of Eliska Sokol. Nothing to be happy about."

"Good for you, Castle," she says. "You've learned something really important. That murder in a book may be entertaining, but here in the real world? No."

That night, they introduce Teodor Hajek to Melissa Talbot and the little boy who is in fact his son, though no one tells him. On the way out of the apartment house Beckett says, "So, you and Alexis looking forward to your Washington weekend?"

Washington? Shit. He'd forgotten all about his midnight fabrication. "Oh, I postponed it. Have a lot to do here. You know, the book and everything."

"Right, the book. Um, listen. Good luck with it. I know that you'll do it proud."

"Thanks."

What should she do now? She wants to escape, because now she's miserable and she can't keep this up much longer without bursting into tears. She doesn't want him to go.

What should he do now? He doesn't want to go. Doesn't want this to be the end. At least he can be a gentleman about it. He holds out his hand, and she shakes it.

"Take care of yourself," she says.

Before he can respond, his phone rings. It's Paula.

And then hers does. It's Montgomery.

According to Paula, _Heat Wave_ sales are so enormous that Castle has been offered a contract for three more Nikki Heat books, at an astronomical price. "Forget the other offer," he says. "For that kind of money I'll do a dozen Nikki Heats."

According to Montgomery, the Mayor is insistent that Beckett cooperate. "I'm gonna kill you," she says to Castle, not entirely convincingly. She hangs up, but her phone rings again: this time it's Espo, announcing a new murder.

"Are you coming or what?" she asks.

She's trying not to smile, but he can see it at the corner of her mouth and in her eyes. And he knows, at that instant, that money had nothing to do with his decision. At that instant, James Bond, the embodiment of his boyhood dreams, vanishes. There's not a trace of him, his upper-crust British accent, his Aston-Martin or his pre-war Bentleys, his shaken-not-stirred Martinis, his gadgets, or his endless parade of women, and Castle doesn't give a damn. The embodiment of his grown-up dreams is standing right in front of him, and he'll stick with her. For the rest of his life.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm for this story. Many, many firsts ahead! The next chapter will be set during 2x12 ("A Rose for Ever After") and 2x13 ("Sucker Punch").


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

What had she told him? What had she fucking well told him? The man cannot follow rules or orders or requests. Not since the moment they'd met. Not since day one. In fact, not since day one minus four years, ten months and two weeks, when he'd been arrested for stealing a police horse and riding, nude, through Central Park.

She tells Castle to do something and what does he do? Exactly the opposite.

It's a bitterly cold January night and she's sitting at home in the dark. She doesn't feel like turning on a light. She doesn't feel like turning on a radiator, either. She's so mad at him that she's generating enough heat to warm not just her apartment but his gazillion-square-foot loft.

A bridesmaid, Sophie Ronson, had been murdered in a hotel only hours before the wedding of one Kyra Blaine. One Kyra Blaine who, it turns, out had been Castle's one true love, back in his college days. One Kyra Blaine he's obviously still mooning over. One Kyra Blaine who is now a murder suspect, although he refuses to believe it because his emotions are completely compromised.

What had she told him, just hours ago? That he was too close to her. "If you weren't, you'd be all over the possibility that Kyra could have killed Sophie. You have to stay away from her, Castle, until this case is closed." And had he? He sure as hell had not. She has the evidence, the damning, damnable photographs, to prove that he had not. Right here. Right on her coffee table. She picks one up. There he is on the hotel roof, kissing Kyra. Kissing a woman who is about to marry someone who is not Castle. Kissing a woman who could be a killer. If the flame on that torch he's carrying gets any hotter he'll set them both on fire, she thinks, as she slams the photo face(s) down on the table.

Lanie claims that she's jealous. It's ridiculous. Absurd. Nuts. It's the dopiest thing her friend has ever said to her. Jealous? Please. She isn't jealous. Cannot be jealous. Just because Castle had called Kyra "the one that got away"? She lets that stew for a while, "the one that got away."

Lets it stew for about half an hour. Okay, okay, so she's a tiny bit jealous. She admits it. Not to Lanie, not a chance, but to herself. Okay, okay, she's not a tiny bit jealous. She's really jealous. Hugely jealous. All-consumingly jealous.

Well, that's a first. She's wildly jealous of how Castle feels about another woman? She needs to think some more about this, to examine from every angle that one simple, complicated sentence, "She's the one that got away." She'll do it professionally. Methodically. Without emotion. This is a time to call on every bit of her experience as a detective, someone who can take anything apart and put it back together again, the right way. Because lots of times something is the wrong way around and she needs to fix it.

This is a time for critical thinking.

This is a time for coffee.

She walks the few steps to her kitchen, and gets a pot going. She'll make her mind a blank until she can fuel it adequately with caffeine. She's not thinking about Kyra. Lalalalalalalalala. She's not thinking about Castle. Lalalalalalalalalala. Coffee's ready. Thank God. She carries the mug to the living room, and plops down in her armchair again.

His exact words were, "She's the one that got away." It's hard to believe, since he's such a grammar Nazi, that he didn't say, "She's the one who got away." Is that a good or a bad sign? A good sign would be that he thinks so seldom of Kyra now that he paid no attention to grammar and just used the expression, "the one that got away." _That_ , not _who_. A bad sign would be that he's so bedazzled by her that grammar eluded him.

She's stuck. And she's jealous. Her stomach feels acid-filled. Tomorrow she'll show him these photos, and lay him out in acid-filled rows. It's what he deserves.

Thirty-six hours later she's calmly giving her hair a quick once-over in a ladies' room mirror. She had laid Castle out in acid-filled rows yesterday morning, but they'd also proceeded with the case. And fairly quickly cracked it. For every reason in the world she's grateful that Kyra Blaine is not the killer—and equally grateful that neither is the groom, Greg. Castle had explained everything to Kyra, privately, in a small room at the precinct. She'd watched covertly from her desk, anxious and curious. She'd seen Kyra kissed Castle on the cheek, seen him smile and then look as if he were somewhere far away while she'd walked out of the room. He hadn't even noticed when Kyra had stopped at her desk and said gently, "He's all yours."

She leans in to the mirror and refreshes her lipstick. She's trying not to dwell on those three little words, "He's all yours." Not that long ago they would have sent her into a full-blown panic; now she's put them, metaphorically, in the box with her mother's ring, her father's watch, and Castle's note about hope. Every morning and every evening when she opens the box, she'll let herself think about that for a moment. "He's all yours." He's all hers.

When she walks out the door she finds Castle leaning against the wall of the chapel, waiting for her. "Ready to go to a wedding?" he asks, straightening up.

"Yup. If I'd had a little more warning I'd have dressed up more up for the occasion."

"You look fine to me, Beckett. Got your gun?"

"Why, is this a shotgun wedding?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Good, 'cause I only have my Glock."

At the end of the small ceremony—nothing like the lavish one Kyra and Greg had originally planned—the minister pronounces the couple husband and wife, and they kiss. At that instant, any trace of jealousy that Beckett might have had dissolves, and immediately after that the bridal bouquet, which Kyra has just tossed over her shoulder, lands in her hand. She's pretty sure that the bride winked at her. She's even more sure that Castle swallowed the comment he was about to make. She smiles at him and says nothing.

For the last ten days, ever since Beckett had been furious because he'd ignored her order and met Kyra on the roof, he's been trying to follow all her instructions. Their current case involves the Westies, a venerable Irish gang who have their blood-stained hands on everything but drugs. Huh, venerable isn't quite the right word for a gang. Not that kind of gang, even if it has been around, off and on, for half a century. It's having something of a renaissance with the economy still recovering; bad times are always good times for gangs. Not good times for this gangbanger, though: Jack Coonan, an enforcer for the Westies. He's dead on the floor, blood leaking from at least 30 stab wounds.

"Looks like Swiss cheese," Espo says.

"A little respect," Ryan sniffs. "The guy's Irish."

"You're both right. The Irish make a good Swiss cheese. Nutty flavor, very nice."

"Thanks for the culinary elucidation, Castle," Beckett says. "But we have work to do."

After leaving the crime scene, they have the always depressing task of notifying the next of kin. They're surprised, not to say shocked, that the NOK, Jack Coonan's brother, Dick, is a model citizen-philanthropist who builds schools in Afghanistan. He'd known that his brother worked for the Westies, but not what that work entailed. Just as well, Castle says to Beckett later, when they're driving to Hell's Kitchen. The neighborhood has been gentrified and renamed Clinton, but no gentry ever reached this block. It's definitely still hell. Beckett parks in front of a rat-hole of a bar, and unholsters her gun. Maybe because he's been such a stand-up guy in the obeying instructions area lately, she asks if he wants to wait out here while she goes in to meet with the head of the Westies. She doesn't order him; she gives him a choice.

"You sure you don't wanna stay in the car, Castle?"

"No way."

"Okay. Keep your mouth shut and try to butch up a little."

Wow. This is progress, immense progress. He might have to celebrate it with a drink after work, if he can persuade her to come along. Although definitely not here. This place looks like botulism on toast.

They don't get that drink, though, because the case gets more complicated as they discover that Coonan may have been killed because of drug-trafficking. By the time they've done all they can, it's almost midnight and all anyone wants to do is go home and sleep.

Thank God he had gotten some sleep, because this day has turned into a horror, a horror that he'd never expected. It had started off fine, as he and Beckett had interviewed a get-rich-quick, self-help real-estate scammer who was smuggling heroin for someone in his DVDs, shipped by the boatload from Hong Kong. They'd known he's involved with Coonan, and they'd tried to get him to talk, but he'd refused: he's terrified of whoever's running the show.

It was after that, when they'd gone back to the bullpen to bounce ideas off each other, that the fiery mouth of hell opened beneath them, and swallowed them up. Lanie had walked in with Clark Murray—the forensic pathologist who had interpreted Johanna Beckett's autopsy photos for him—and explained that she'd asked him to consult on the Coonan case. Clark had begun to describe, in grim, clinical detail, the wounds and how they had been administered. Beckett had been fascinated, but Castle had watched in growing horror as he began connecting the dots. His mind had been racing ahead; he'd known what Clark was going to say probably twenty seconds before he had: "There is no doubt in my mind that Jack Coonan was killed by the same man who murdered your mother."

Beckett had lost it. Understandably. She'd reamed out Lanie, who had asked for Clark's help because she'd noticed the similarity in the wounds. Montgomery had called Beckett into his office, tried to calm her down, given her a drink, and asked her if she could handle the case.

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't."

He'd called out to her, but she'd grabbed her coat and walked right by him. He'd called out to her again but she'd kept on going, without a word, without a glance.

For hours he's tried to find her—called, texted, emailed, even stood outside her building until he was so cold that he couldn't feel his feet. Finally he'd gone home. He's looking out the window, feeling the guilt press down as if the ceiling were being lowered onto his back. If only he had left it alone. If only he hadn't filled in Lanie on the details. This is his fault, and he has no idea how to fix it. He's shattered Beckett again, just as she was recovering from the last time he'd done this.

He hears a tentative knock on the door and turns with a sigh to see who it is.

Beckett? "Hey."

"Hey," she echoes.

He asks her in, and discovers that his family has come out to join them only when he sees his mother fold Beckett into a hug.

"Hang in there, kiddo," she says.

That should be inadequate, even inappropriate, at best slightly off-the-wall, but in fact it's just right. "Thank you, Martha," Beckett says, and it's obvious that she means it. But he, the man of best-selling words, can't come up with a thing.

"Please," he finally says. It comes out as a supplication, and it is. "I will do anything that you need, including nothing, if that's what you want."

"What I want is to find my mother's killer."

She's knocked the breath out of him. Talk about a first. A double first. She wants to find her mother's killer, and she's come over here to ask for his help? And even though the sensible part of him knows that they're setting off on a perilous journey, fraught with—fraught with everything—he feels somehow lighter. They're in this together.

The lightness, the quasi-euphoria, builds as they build the case the next day. The vic's little brother, the altruistic school builder Dick, is in fact the man running the drug ring and a fratricidal monster, to boot. He may not have held the knife, or delivered the blows, but he paid the guy who did, to keep his empire going by preventing Jackie from bringing it down. And the guy he paid to kill his brother is the man someone else paid to kill Beckett's mother.

The euphoria lasts only overnight. Coonan demands, and gets, transactional immunity for promising to deliver the assassin to them. Castle willingly pays the hundred grand to set it up; it assuages his guilt. It's the least he can do. Until it becomes the worst. Because there was no assassin. Dick Coonan himself is the assassin, and when Beckett realizes it, and calls him on it, Coonan first grabs a gun from a guard and then grabs Castle.

He has Castle's arms pinned behind his back, and can put a bullet through him in a nanosecond. He's going to use him as a human shield to get out of the precinct.

"You knew my mom was your victim," Beckett says.

"It wasn't personal, okay? She was just another job."

Castle wants to kill him right there, but he's immobilized.

"She was my mother. Who hired you to kill her?"

"Forget it. You'll never touch them. They'll bury you."

"Tell me who."

He doesn't, despite Beckett's insistence. Despite her plea to Montgomery to put down his weapon so that she can keep Coonan alive. And then he, Richard Castle, makes the worst mistake of his sorry life: he slams the back of his head, hard, into Coonan's face, and feels the man's nose shatter against his skull. But his misplaced bravado, his gesture, is worse than empty, because Coonan recovers. He staggers to his feet and is about to shoot Castle, and Beckett stops him with a bullet of her own. He's dead on the floor of the Twelfth Precinct, the place in which a rookie cop had secretly tried to investigate her mother's homicide a few years back. The place in which her writerly shadow had fueled a new investigation that has led to this. This worthless carnage. To save Castle, Beckett not only killed the man who killed her mother, but killed any possibility of finding out who had paid Coonan to do it.

She's futilely administering CPR, and finally stops. Castle is hovering behind her, and when he stretches out his hand to rest on her shoulder, she begins to sob. This is the first time he has seen her cry, and it's devastating. There's blood on her hands, but it should be on his. This is all on him.

The crime scene is processed, they all give their statements. They're numb. They leave.

He stayed away from the precinct today, but in the late afternoon he checks with the Captain, who tells him that the boys have left but that she's still there, doing paperwork. He's going to say goodbye, and he's brought an insane variety and amount of food. He knows that he has to go, but not without some kind of offering. He's relieved to see that though she looks exhausted, she isn't in despair.

"I came down here to say that I'm sorry. And that I'm through."

He figures that she'll thank him, maybe shake his hand. But he figures wrong. She says that without him she'd never have found her mother's killer, and that she wants him there when she finds out who hired Coonan. "I have a hard job, Castle, and having you around makes it a little more fun."

When he sits opposite her at her desk, and hears that gentle admission, his battered hope is restored; it flies back to perch in his soul. It's not the first time that Beckett's given him hope, but it's the best, and just might be the one that matters most.

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to reader 1822andallthat for the prompt: "First time she or he felt jealous."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Alexis's pajamas are too small for her, so he'd given her some of his, which are way too big. It doesn't matter. She's not Golidlocks. God, she's not Goldilocks, but she's grateful for Castle's flannel PJs because they're warm. Besides, she has nothing else. Virtually everything else had gone up in flames a few hours ago. She's grateful for the guest-room bed, too, which is probably way, way more comfortable than anything Goldilocks ever encountered. But sleep will not come, even at 2:30 a.m. She's too terrified, though she's hidden that from everyone, and she doesn't remember ever having felt this cold. Even the luxurious down-filled duvet on the bed isn't enough. It's March 30th, officially spring by the calendar, but not outside, and certainly not for her.

The only thing that she can think of that might take the edge off the chill and also make her drowsy is hot chocolate. It worked when she was a little girl, and maybe it still will. She tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen, glad that one small light is on so that she can navigate the space and look through the cabinets for what she needs. She's trying to be quiet, but she can't search completely soundlessly. Eventually she finds the cocoa tin—correction: four cocoa tins, each a different variety—and the sugar bowl, as well as a small saucepan and measuring spoons and cups. "Wow," she whispers, "he has everything. He could open a restaurant in here." She pours milk into the pan and puts in on the stove.

"Beckett?" The voice is coming from behind her, in the living room.

The measuring spoons slip from her fingers and hit the floor as she gasps. "Castle! You scared me to death."

When she wheels around he's only a few feet away. Holy mother of God, he's bare-chested. The only thing he's wearing is the Rubber Ducky pajama bottoms that he'd brought to the stakeout a few months ago. Her instantly over-heated brain is sending her inane messages like "Mount Rushmore meets Sesame Street!" Is she staring? She's not even sure, hypnotized as she is by the sensual expanse of skin over truly magnificent musculature. Mount Rushmore? Those guys—Teddy Roosevelt, whoever, she's too befuddled to recall—weren't built anything like this, but Castle is definitely monumental. At least from what she can see. She instructs her brain not to think about what all those cute little Rubber Duckies are hiding. She is not successful. But this is the first time she's seen him naked from the waist up, or any kind of naked, and she can't help herself.

"Sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry that I woke you. I was trying to be quiet."

"No, no, I'm the one who's sorry. Sorry I startled you. Are you all right? What are you doing up at this hour, anyway?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"I couldn't either."

She rubs her hands up and down her crossed arms. "And I'm so cold."

"Really? I'm so hot."

No kidding. So not kidding. Look at the cocoa, look at his face, look anywhere except below his neck. "Uh."

"It's the shock, I think. Can I get you some more blankets? Mind if I join you?"

Join her? What, under the blankets? "Join me?" She thinks she just squeaked. The way he does sometimes, which she has always mocked and never will again.

"You know, keep you company. Why don't you sit down and let me finish making you the hot chocolate? That's what you were doing, right?"

"Yeah," she answers feebly and plops down on a stool.

"Want marshmallows?"

"Sure."

"Small or big."

"Big." She'd meant to say small, but looking at him, all she can think of is big. She's a detective, thinks of herself as a really good detective. So how come she'd never detected the body that was under his shirts? Could it be, might it have been, repression?

"Whipped cream?" he asks cheerfully.

Geez, the vision of that. "You have whipped cream?"

"Of course I do."

"Okay. Sounds nice." Sounds erotic, more like. A lunatic killer bombed her apartment yesterday, and this is what she's thinking? What is the matter with her? She watches him watching the milk heat up; he takes it off the burner the moment before it comes to a boil, and with a tiny whisk that had magically appeared in his hand stirs in the cocoa powder and the sugar.

"Just so you know," he says, as he squirts cream from a can. "This isn't that fake crap that people try to palm off as whipped cream. This is the real thing." He adds a few marshmallows and slides the mug across the bar to her. "Careful, it's really hot. Don't burn your tongue."

He would have to bring up tongue. She lifts the mug and blows gently on the surface a few times before taking a tentative sip. "This is delicious. Thank you." She takes a bigger sip, and then another. When she looks up she finds him staring at her. "What?"

"You have a little, um, cream." He touches the tip of his index finger to a soft spot about an inch to the left of her lower lip. "Right there."

Some crazed impulse descends on her: she wraps her hand around his wrist, takes his finger in her mouth, and sucks the cream from it.

An impartial observer who knows nothing of them or their history would be hard pressed to say who looks more surprised, but Beckett is the first to move. She simultaneously withdraws her hand and releases his finger.

"Sorry," she yelps, and covers her eyes as her cheeks redden.

What he wants to say is, "Don't be sorry." What he wants to do is lick his finger because it will taste of her. What he wants to do is take her in his arms and kiss her until she's as warm as she'd ever been, and tell her that everything will be perfect from now on. What he wants to do after that, maybe tomorrow, is set off fireworks and order a marching band to come through the loft. He won't, because though she's overwhelming sexy right now, she's also overwhelmingly vulnerable. She lost her home a few hours ago. She can't possibly be thinking straight. She's there in a tee shirt that could cover two of her, and his baggy pajama bottoms, looking beautiful but lost. He had seen her half-naked in her burning apartment and he's trying to keep it out of his mind. The flames, but also the half-naked. Her elegant back, the curve of her buttock and the edge of her breast. It's hard to forget that. Boxing up that memory and putting it away for now is one of the hardest things he's had to do in a long time. And she just had his finger in her mouth and covered it with her tongue and sucked on it, which is even harder to forget. He doesn't need to forget it, surely? Only shove it aside until it's safe to think about again. And act on. He hopes. God, he hopes. Prays, even. For this he'd get on his knees and pray. It's the first time he'd felt her tongue, and he can still feel it. Might still be feeling the phantom touch of it three months from now.

"No apology necessary," he says brightly, as if she'd said that she was sorry for dropping the measuring spoons, not for—not for that other thing. "I know my hot chocolate is irresistible."

Her hands are still over her eyes. Had he given her an out? Bless him, he had. Pull yourself together, she thinks. "Totally irresistible. I've only ever made Hershey's you know, or in college instant Swiss Miss, and I wasn't sure which one of yours to use because they have different percentages and I don't really know the implications of those, I mean you must since you have so many kinds and you're obviously an aficionado. And. Well, so. Anyway, this one is great, whatever it is." She buries her face in the mug and takes a long drink. He hasn't commented, so she plows ahead to fill the charged silence. "I like it when the marshmallow melts and there's kind of a layer of it, so delicious, not like when you scald the milk and you get that disgusting skin on top but I noticed you were really careful not to let it boil over or anything."

He can tell how desperate she is, and he's going to try to help. "If I'd ever been a Boy Scout the first merit badge I'd have gone for is hot-chocolate making. I doubt that there is one, but there should be." He sets his mug noisily in the sink. "That hit the spot. I think it's made me sleepy, too. Have you warmed up? Can I get you anything else?"

"No, no. I'm fine. I can probably sleep now. Thanks. Thanks, Castle. You're—. Um, night." She turns for the stairs and at the bend she looks at him and waves.

He waits until he hears her door shut before he rinses the mugs and spoons, puts them in the dishwasher, and leaves the saucepan to soak. He's halfway to his room when he hears her door open, and he stops and walks back. She's standing at the top, gripping the handrail.

"Everything okay, Beckett?"

"Yes, thanks. I just wanted to say."

Even in the dim light he can see her swallow, hard, and he waits.

"I just wanted to say thanks for not letting me die. In my apartment. I don't think I could've gotten out on my own. Night."

His self-control holds up long enough for him to answer lightly, "You? You could get out of much worse. Though maybe not without my coat. Night." He moves ahead quickly to his bedroom because tears are about three paces away. Thanks for not letting me die. Thanks for not letting me die. She could have died. He hadn't let himself consider that until now. She could have died. Almost died. Didn't die. Is alive, upstairs.

Two days later, when they've had a dramatic close to the case, he thinks how close they'd come to failing to catch Scott Dunn, the killer. Even with the FBI toys. In fact, the FBI gizmos had nothing to do with it at the end. At the end, it had been Beckett not just trusting him, but encouraging him, that had done it. Dunn had kidnapped Agent Jordan Shaw, and Castle had been sure that he wasn't in the building that they'd targeted.

"You and I have known each other long enough for me to know that sometimes your silly theories are right," Beckett had said. "So if you have a reason to believe that he's not up there, then you need to tell me why, now."

"Just because—it's not how I would write it."

He realizes now, as he goes over that conversation, that even a few weeks earlier she'd have dismissed his idea. Or maybe gone with it, but only after he'd worn her down. And the way she'd drawn him out, too. She'd never done that before, not at that level, not with so much at stake. It's a first that fills him with unexpressed pride.

"What happens in your version?" she'd asked

"He lets us think we've found him to lure us here. Lets the FBI converge on the building, only he's not in there."

"Where is he?"

"Nearby watching. Watching it all unfold. He's got something planned. If it were me, I'd wait until they all got inside, got settled into position, and then I'd blow the building."

And now Scott Dunn is locked up, and Castle is approaching Beckett's desk. He hadn't seen her this morning because she'd left early, before he'd gotten up to make Alexis's breakfast. It doesn't take as much time now that he no longer makes her lunch, too. He misses that.

Huh, Jordan Shaw is there, packing up to leave. She shakes his hand and thanks him, actually thanks him. "You are a valuable asset to Detective Beckett's team." He puffs up, but that? Even praise from the legendary Agent Shaw, who had broken the Hudson Valley Strangler case almost 20 years ago, doesn't stack up to Beckett's having faith in his applying his writer's abilities to catch Scott Dunn.

As soon as Shaw departs he sits down, puts a small bag in front of Beckett, and tells her to open it.

"My father's watch," she says, smiling gently. Not a huge grin, but a more meaningful, softer expression. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I found it in the wreckage, had it fixed."

That's all she says, five words. Simple, straightforward, no frills. But her eyes say everything else, and that's all he wants or needs.

They chat for a moment and she slips the watch on and asks him to excuse her because she's got only half an hour to meet an old friend from college for coffee.

She'd lied. Fibbed. There is no coffee with an old college friend. Instead, there's the back stairs landing between the second and third floors, which almost no one ever uses. She sits down and squeezes her hands between her knees. Her father's watch. She'd thought that she'd never see it again, and it was the only thing she cared about except her mother's ring, which she already has. Castle had looked though the wreckage for her. It must have been bleak, and smelled horrible. A couple of months ago he'd sacrificed $100,000 to try to find her mother's killer, and had refused to accept any repayment, which would have taken the rest of her natural life. She'll never forget it, even though he's so rich that a hundred grand doesn't put a ding, never mind a dent, in his finances. Fixing the watch, how much could that have cost? $200, tops. And yet it means even more. She's known for a long time that he's a generous man, but this is something else. This is generosity that comes from deep inside. It's quiet and modest and heartfelt and personal and means nothing to anyone but her. That's a first, she thinks, running her palm over an imaginary smear on the face of the watch. That's a first, to recognize that character trait in him, the one that he'd been hiding along with that chiseled torso. She sits there for another 25 minutes, until it's time to go back upstairs. She takes a last look at her father's restored watch, and wonders how many more broken things Castle might mend in her life.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you to all readers, reviewers, favoriters, and followers. Special thanks to reader Roadrunnerz for the great prompt: "She sees him in the rubber ducky PJs. Don't worry about the tee-shirt top."


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle is starving. Why are they so low on snacks? Oh. Alexis's sleepover last Saturday, that's why. He should have gone shopping three days ago, but he needs something right now and doesn't feel like going to the grubby all-night store at one in the morning. He starts taking things out of cupboards to see if there's something lurking there that might fill the pit in his stomach. And heart.

"Thanks a lot, Demming, you smug little snot," he mumbles as he continues his search. "It's all your fault I can't sleep. Having to watch you preen about robbery this, robbery that, what a phenomenal record you have." He and Beckett shouldn't be working this case with him. The guy has no homicide experience, but she asked him to help. Damian Wilder, the men's boutique skincare tycoon, had been shot and killed at home. Some of his valuable books are missing, so of course Beckett _insists_ that robbery was the motive instead of what it obviously was, which was opportunity. Before she'd gotten so thick with Demming she'd never have fallen for that. Naturally Demming was all over her idea like a cheap suit, which is what he is. A cheap, goddamn suit.

He's rooting around in the the back of a cupboard when his hand brushes against some kind of crackly bag, and he hauls it out into the light. Oh, hell, no wonder it was stuffed behind the oatmeal. Who would eat this? He sniffs loudly. Beckett, that's who. That's why this bag is here. While she was staying in the loft during her search for a new apartment last month, they'd gone grocery shopping, and she'd bought this. He remembers every detail of that expedition. Even her cute pink-and-white striped socks.

"You have a list?" she'd asked, her eyes wide as they'd strolled along with a cart.

"What, you don't?"

"Never need one."

"Probably because you never go to the supermarket except for coffee," he'd said, after crossing off oranges, broccoli, onions, ginger, potatoes, eggs, milk, lamb chops, Count Chocula cereal, Dijon mustard, sesame seeds, a jar of peanuts, and detergent on his lengthy list.

"I do too go," she'd insisted.

"Yeah? When? When was the last time?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Make an educated guess."

"Geez, Castle, you're so picky. Okay. Thanksgiving 2008."

"That was a year and a half ago. Before we even met. You haven't been to the supermarket since then?" He'd pushed the cart to the left to turn into the next aisle.

"I'm here now, aren't I?"

He'd stopped to stare at her. "You haven't put a single thing in this basket."

"You're the one with the list."

"Have you looked at it? Are you sure you don't want something that I may have forgotten?"

She'd glared at him and taken the paper from his hand with a snap. After a quick scan, she'd returned it and walked away.

"Where are you going?" he'd called to her.

"To get what you forgot."

What could she possibly have wanted that wasn't on his list? He'd propped himself up on a shelf of cookies and waited. A minute or so later she'd returned, carrying a shiny black bag of something that she'd tossed into the cart.

"There," she'd said. "I'm done."

He shakes his head as he looks at it now. Beckett had moved into her new apartment weeks ago, but she hadn't taken this with her. It's unopened and looks just as unappetizing as the day he'd watched it skitter down the conveyor belt to the cashier. "What kind of deranged mind comes up with kale-tofu carob chips?" he says, looking at the expiration date, which is still months away. "It's an affront to snackdom. I can't believe she likes these."

In the interest of science, and to prove that he's right, he tears open the bag and tries a chip, which he has to force himself to swallow before he throws the rest of the bag into the trash can. "Inedible," he says. Why hadn't she eaten any of them while she was here? Maybe the purchase had been a ruse, just to annoy him? Maybe she'd picked something that she knew he'd hate because he'd been needling her in the supermarket? Not bad, Detective, he thinks. Touché.

He wishes that her liking Demming were a ruse just to annoy him, but she seems genuinely interested in the jerk. Laughs at his lame jokes. She hasn't admitted that they're actually dating, but he knows it, especially because she'd bristled when he'd asked her outright day before yesterday. "It's none of your business," she'd said. She and Demming had shared a cab after work, too. Furthermore, f-u-r-t-h-e-r-m-o-r-e, she hadn't let him sit in on interrogations that the two of them had conducted. He, her partner, had been relegated to observation.

She deserves so much better. Why is she wasting time with him?

Ice cream. That's what he'll have. Might cool him down a little. He gets a quart of chocolate-chip coffee gelato—Beckett's favorite—from the freezer, grabs a spoon, and goes back to his office. They'd gotten along so well when she'd stayed in the loft, hadn't they? What happened? Should he have been a little gentler? Maybe not needled her at all, even good-natured needling? After all, she'd just lost everything she owned. He should have been more careful. Or maybe he should have been a little less cautious and let her know how he felt. Feels. Will always feel. Maybe he should have pressed his case a little, because clearly Demming has been pressing his. He licks some gelato off the spoon and shudders, not because his snack is cold but because he can't bear to think what else that creep is pressing.

Halfway through the quart he acknowledges the real problem. Jealousy. He hasn't been this jealous in years—no, ever. He's off-the-charts jealous of a cop because of a cop. That's a first, an unforeseen first. A cop, a detective, has planted himself between him and Beckett. He'd never have guessed it, had never seen it coming. How can he stop this romance, derail this affair before it gets too serious. Is it serious? He needs to sleep on it. Needs to get some sleep before they return to this case in the morning, too. And he should look his best. Good thing he's been using that top-of-the-line Damian Wilder shaving cream. His skin is as smooth as a baby's butt. Unlike Demming's, which probably feels like asphalt.

Twenty hours later he's home again, feeling worse rather than better. They'd closed the case and it turns out that both he and Demming had been right about the killer's identity, because there were two killers, rather than one. It's the kind of wacky outcome that would have sent him dancing into the street, except for the involvement of Demming. Tom. Beckett even called him Tom. It was sickening. And much as it galls him to admit it, Demming had been useful. He'd even had the grace to say it Romeo of Robbery.

"So listen, thanks," he'd gritted out. "Thanks for your help on this one."

"Oh, you know, same team," Demming had replied.

Same team. Oh, sure. Let's get shirts and caps made. And that was before things went really, really south. South as in the bottom of the world. South as in the Antarctic where his heart had frozen inside his chest. That had happened right after he'd thanked Demming and gone looking for Beckett, to congratulate her on being the one who had really cracked the case.

His heart may have frozen, but what he'd seen next is burning in his brain. It feels as if it's still happening, like a hot poker held against his bare skin. There she is, standing in a back hallway, kissing Demming. In the precinct, for Christ's sake. Demming has his hand on her hip, a gesture that's way, way too familiar. They're so wrapped up in each other that they don't even notice him. After Demming leaves he watches Beckett walk away, fingers to her lips, sealing a private smile that he'd hoped she'd give him some day.

It's only a little after 9:30, but what's the point in staying up? He's going to bed.

He should have stayed there. The last week has been hell. There's a dry spell in the Twelfth's patch of murderville, so there's no reason for him to go into the precinct. He had, twice, and regretted it both times because Demming had found some excuse for dropping in and making goo-goo eyes at Beckett as if no one would notice. Or maybe he'd wanted everyone to notice. Way more likely.

He can't write. He's lost his inspiration, and Gina is hounding him because he's missed his deadline. He's not blocked, exactly, just—. Discouraged. Blue.

But tonight, at last, he had an idea, and it's working. It's not helping his writing, but it's cheering him up, which is a good first step. Beckett would be horrified, but hey, what he's doing is hardly voodoo. He doesn't have a doll dressed in a suit and tie that's he's sticking with pins at every tiny vital organ. He's not trying to kill Demming, he just wants him to go away. All he's doing is playing darts in his office, by himself. It's a dartboard, for crying out loud. Totally harmless. Okay, it has Demming's face in the middle, so what? He gives himself 10 points when his dart pierces an earlobe, 25 points when if it lands on a nostril, and 50 when it's right between the baby blues.

Final score: Castle 370, Demming 0. He looks at all the points of facial impaling and goes to sleep happy for the first time in days.

She knows that she has no one to blame but herself, which has sent her misery to previously unplumbed depths. What she doesn't know is how everything had unravelled so quickly and disastrously. On call for the Memorial Day weekend, she's hanging around at home in her pajamas. If she has to go in, she'll get dressed, but otherwise she won't bother. It's not as though she's going to have company. Gentlemen callers. Any callers.

There's no way to stitch things back together, but she's going to try to figure out how she'd ended up in this single-occupancy morass. She's had a few days to acknowledge that she shouldn't ever have begun anything with Demming. He's a nice guy, fun to talk shop with, and yes, it had been nice to have some romance in her life. But romance that light doesn't mean much at this point in her life. She doesn't want an appetizer, she wants the whole meal. And the whole meal that she really wants is Castle, soup to nuts. At least she isn't so terminally depressed that she doesn't giggle a little over "soup to nuts."

If she'd had the guts, she'd have broken up with Demming at the beginning of the fake-spy case, right after Castle had walked in and found her sitting on her desk with Tom whispering into her ear. "Good thing your captain's not here," he'd said, loud enough for Castle to hear. "This might be construed as inappropriate office behavior."

"Didn't mean to break up your party," Castle had said. She'd brushed it off with, "No party," but she'd been embarrassed.

He'd already invited her to the Hamptons for the weekend, even given her a photo of the view from his patio. He'd brought it up again a little later to tell her that it was a serious invitation. But he was also being a gentleman about it. "I promise, no funny stuff. Just a friendly getaway. It'd be fun." She'd told him she had to work, and then he'd caught her out in a lie. Of course it's not a lie now, because after all the shit hit the fan she had volunteered to work the holiday weekend. No one to blame but her hellish self.

She and Castle had been working on the case when Demming had strolled in. "You know that little place in Asbury I was telling you about, around the corner from our beach house? They just had a reservation open up on Friday. If we leave early enough, we could probably make it."

"Yeah, um, will you let me check into it?"

He'd gone then, leaving her face to face with Castle, her hideous lie writhing between them like some voracious beast, ready to swallow her alive, which would have been preferable to what had followed.

"Beach house?" Castle had said in surprise. "Thought you were working this weekend."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Castle. I should've just told you. I just didn't want things to be awkward between us, now that Tom and I are together."

And what had the eternally generous Castle done? Been understanding. "No, I get it," he'd said. "You want your private life to be private."

"Yeah, I just don't—I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable."

The agony had gone on a slalom run at that point, because Castle had countered. "Actually, that makes what I was gonna say a little easier. Um, what with my book due, I was thinking it'd be a good time for us to take a break. God knows, you got to be tired of me following you around all the time, and I really do need to get some work done."

With her pain picking up speed on the increasingly steep downhill slope, she'd asked him how long a break. "The summer at least," he'd said.

Why hadn't she said, "No! Wait! Wait for me!"? She might have, really might, but Ryan and Esposito, in another display of horrendous timing, had arrived with new evidence on the case.

That evening, after Castle had gone home, the boys had told her that they were throwing a going-away party for him the next day. It had almost stopped her heart. "It's not like he's leaving forever," she'd said.

"You sure about that?" Espo had asked intently. "Why do you think he's been following you around all this time? What, research? The guy's done enough research to write fifty books. Look, whatever the reason is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't include watching you be with another guy."

How many warning bells had she needed? Apparently more than that, because she still hadn't called it quits with Demming, nor sought out Castle. When he'd showed up at her desk the next morning, armed with a new, very good theory about the case, a klaxon had gone off in her head. For the first time since he'd started his coffee ritual, he'd been carrying only one cup, not two, and it had been for him, not her. If there'd been a precipice nearby, she'd have hurled herself off it; instead, she and Castle had gone to work on his theory, ultimately closing the case.

At the end of the afternoon she'd broken up with Demming. "What is it you're looking for, Kate?" he'd asked, before turning away. It had been a fair question, more than fair, but she'd just stood there, silent. Still, at least she'd finally cut the cord.

That evening, during the party for Castle, she'd drawn him aside. "I know that I'm not the easiest person to get to know, and I don't always let on what's on my mind. But this past year, working with you, I've had a really good time."

"Yeah. Me, too," he'd said.

"So, I'm, I'm just gonna say this and—"

The interruptor this time was not the boys. Far worse. Gina.

What she had planned to say to Castle, before the shocking—it had been, still was, shocking—appearance by his exceedingly blonde ex-wife/publisher was that she and Demming were over and that she'd love to go to the Hamptons. But she'd been too late. He'd asked Gina instead. And not for the weekend but for the entire summer. Three months. She had managed to shake his hand and say, "See you in the fall."

Will she even make it to the fall? She doesn't know. She feels crushed and lifeless and alone, and Castle's with Gina, because she'd been a fool and had waited too long to screw her courage to the sticking-place. "Listen to yourself," she says bitterly into the dregs of her coffee. "Quoting _Macbeth_. How appropriate. How depressing and tragic and ending-in-disaster, you idiot."

For three and a half days, since Castle and Gina had left the precinct with their arms around each other, she has been riddled with self-recrimination. For the first time in her life she has no idea what to do. For the first time in her life she's truly heartbroken, and that has blindsided her. She'd given her heart to Castle without knowing it, and he hadn't taken it. Her mother's death had plunged her into grief; this is grief of a very different kind, but grief nonetheless, and how will she get over it?

By Sunday night she's aware that she has do something, anything, to stir herself. She's trying her damnedest not to think of Gina, but it's impossible not to think of Castle, who's writing the book about her and him that's not really her and him but she's wishing were about her and him. Espo said that Castle has enough material for 50 books. If that's true, now that he's with Gina, will be ever come back? Or will fall give way to winter and to another spring, and the only time she'll see him is at a book launch?

She misses everything about him, even the annoying things. Even the little things. She misses him in primal ways, like the way he smells. When she'd been staying in the loft she'd sneaked into his bathroom once to see what kind of soap he uses. Yesterday she'd gone out and bought a bar; $15 and worth every penny. She'd stayed in the tub for almost two hours this evening, and lathered up five or six times, just for the smell of it. Of him. Now, wrapped up in a towel and crying for the uncountable-th time, she comes to a decision. She dries off, puts on some yoga pants and the _Heat Wave_ tee shirt that Castle had given her, and turns on her laptop. She goes to the website that she's been avoiding lately, and logs in: SoNotNikki79. Up until now she's been only a reader of Nikki Heat fan fiction, but maybe it's time for her to be a writer. Maybe this is the way to get over him.

TBC

 **A/N** Thanks to reader Ms. MurphyNL for the prompt: "First time they go grocery shopping together." Next: on to Season 3 and many new firsts. Happy weekend, everyone.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

He's as lonely as an armadillo in a snowstorm. Like a rusted beer can rolling across two-lane blacktop. As frustrated as an online shopper without a password. WTF? He's so uninspired, so muse-less, that he can't even come up with an unembarrassing simile for how he feels.

Gina had lasted less than a week, and spent large stretches of it screaming at him. Why had he even asked her to come? Had he been so desperate to have a woman on his arm, and elsewhere, that he'd invited her? Apparently yes, which doesn't say anything good about him.

The summer sucks. He's dragged his sorry ass into August, and he's way overdue on the rest of his book. Simple declarative sentences elude him. Imagination has abandoned him. He's rattling around alone in the house, and tormented by visions—nightmares—of Beckett with Demming. If he could just see her for a minute, hear her voice, it might give him the jolt he needs. Where had Shlemming said their beach house was? Asbury, meaning Asbury Park. The Jersey Shore. Maybe he should take a ride down there on Sunday afternoon, see if he can run into Beckett, except if he runs into Beckett, he'll also run into her boyfriend.

Still, he knows a guy who knows Bruce Springsteen, the man who put Asbury Park on the map. Springsteen lives in Rumson, about twelve miles up the coast from Asbury Park. How cool would it be if he could persuade the Boss to take a ride with him in his Ferrari? It would take them six minutes. Okay, longer, but surely the cops would give their local hero a pass. When they hit town they'd slow down, just happen to drive by Beckett and Shlemming. He'd pull over, ask them if they'd like to have a drink. Shlemming could ogle the car while he ogles—talks to—Beckett.

Who's he kidding? Bruce Springsteen probably has his own Ferrari. Another fantasy destroyed.

He grabs a beer and his laptop, and goes out to sit under an umbrella by the pool. He's been fighting an urge for something for weeks, and his resistance is shot. He's a desperate man. Gina and Paula and his lawyer have impressed on him that under no circumstances should he read Nikki Heat fan fiction, that there would be liability issues if he writes something that in any way resembles something on that site. Oh, please, like that's gonna happen. In truth, he'd checked it out a couple of times in the winter, for fun and to satisfy his curiosity. There were some decent stories there, even promising, but nothing anywhere near his league. It's astonishing how many people participate, though. There's a huge fan base and it probably feeds his book sales, so he's not going to pass judgment. At least not much—especially now, when he's running on empty. There, another cliche. He's scraping the bottom of—. He censors himself before he completes another one.

When he logs on he sees screens upon screens of stories, and reads the brief descriptions of about 100 before he starts marking some choices. Vast numbers of follows and reviews are not necessarily indicative of quality, and anything with a K or K+ rating won't suit his mood. His final list has a dozen stories, and it's the ninth, "Bad Good Night," that captures him. By the end of the first chapter, he's sure that the writer, SoNotNikki79, is a woman. She has provided no bio, but there's a US flag on her page, so presumably she's American. It's her only story to date. She'd posted the first chapter on June 3, shortly after Memorial Day. In ten weeks since, she's added four more. That's a slow pace, but she probably has a full-time job. A family, maybe. Whoever she is, she has talent. He reads three chapters before taking a breather. Her style is nothing like his: pared down to the bone, but gripping. It's an entirely AU story, though the characters are true to his. Almost hyper true, because she has insights into them that make him begin to reassess his own versions.

At the beginning of "Bad Good Night," Rook is seriously injured on a stakeout. It's his own fault, since he'd been grandstanding and done exactly what Nikki had told him not to, but she takes it very hard. Although he recovers, their relationship is fraying and eventually the two of them have a searing argument about responsibility and risk-taking and trust. He decides to take a break and accepts a four-month assignment in a remote part of Tajikistan. That's at the end of chapter three, and from that point on the story is virtually all in Nikki's voice, with Rook unable, and probably also unwilling, to stay in touch.

As Nikki's anger begins to dissipate, loneliness and isolation move in. The portrayal of the detective's heartbreak, which was as surprising to her as it was devastating, is beautifully written and painful to read. It's clear that she's trying to distance herself from Rook because she believes that he's not coming back. Or that he if he does come back, that his emotional connection to her is irreparably severed.

When he finishes chapter five he's hungry for more, but there isn't any. He's been so immersed in the story that he's forgotten about his beer, which is now undrinkably warm. Peeling himself off the chaise longue, he walks back into the house for another bottle and a bag of pretzels. This story is really getting to him, which surprises him for a lot of reasons, the most important being that he's not pissed off. This woman has messed around with his romance, for God's sake. How dare she? Free expression, yeah, yeah. Yet he's not even mildly annoyed that she split up his couple, banished Rook to one of the -istans, and shattered Nikki's heart. Well, that's a first.

Outdoors again he's about to compose an anonymous Guest entreaty to the writer, pleading for the next chapter, when he notices that while he was in the kitchen she'd updated her story. "Jesus, she's a mind reader, too," he says out loud, startled by his own voice. He clicks on it as fast as any fangirl would, and sees an A/N at the top: "Please note a rating change, to M, for this chapter." Sex? There's going to be sex? It's that or high-level violence, which seems unlikely. But sex? Either Rook has come home, or Nikki has found someone else. If it's the latter he might throw his laptop into the pool.

But SoNotNikki79 surprises him again: it's neither. Instead, it's Nikki remembering the first time that she and Rook slept together. It's not as he imagined it, or as he wrote it. It's totally different than page 105, and yet it's right for this story.

 _He was unbuttoning my blouse when I told him that I wanted rough first, and tender second._

 _"_ _You think we're doing this only twice?"_

 _"_ _No, that's just my initial request."_

 _"_ _Sounds like a command to me."_

 _"_ _I'm not a cop for nothing."_

Castle chuckles at that, and continues to read. She may be something of a minimalist, but the scene that follows is hot. It's not easy to write well about sex, but she does. He'd tip his hat to her if he were wearing one. Sex-starved as he is at present, he's surprised again that what interests him most in the chapter is the aftermath: what she's thinking now, long after the fact. The elegiac tone of it.

 _Physically he almost split me in two. He pounded me harder than anyone has, and I kept asking for more. It was a distillation of his power, in me and for me. And us, for us. But after that, when we made love, truly made love, he split me metaphorically, too: I was myself, but I was also somewhere above us, some kind of spirit self. I always dismissed the idea of sex as sweet surrender as romance-novel fodder, but not after that. I surrendered to him and he to me._

 _And now we are no more._

That's the end of the chapter, and he feels as if someone has eviscerated him. He pulls off his shirt, dives into the pool, and begins to swim laps. Anything to get his mind off her Nikki and Rook and his Nikki and Rook.

It doesn't work. After taking a shower he makes himself some dinner, and as he eats he goes over and over Nikki's interior monologues in "Bad Good Night." The more he considers them, the more something nags at him, until at last he pins it down: she reminds him less of his Nikki and more of his—Beckett? Holy shit, she's Beckett. Is it possible? He remembers a case from a year ago when she commented on the cover art for _Heat Wave_ , way before it was published, and he realized that she was a fan. He wondered then if she was writing fan fiction, but it never crossed his mind again.

If she's really writing this, he has to rethink everything, absolutely everything. About her, about him. If it's Beckett, why is she writing this now? It's as if she's exorcising demons, as if she's miserable. If only he could call Lanie and ask. "Is Kate all right? What's going on?" But he can't. SoNotNikki79 is a name she could well have chosen. She's always insisting that she's not Nikki, and she was born in 1979. He stares at nothing for a long time, and then does something else that he'd never expected to do: he logs in (feelingtheheat) and starts typing a review, making sure that he doesn't write in his usual style, which might be a giveaway even if it's not Beckett at all but a retired insurance salesman in Walla Walla. He'd rather do it as a Guest, but she wouldn't be able to reply to that. She probably won't anyway, but it's worth a shot.

It's Saturday night and Beckett is holed up in her apartment. It's too hot to do anything, so she's drinking iced coffee and watching a Yankee game. She'd updated her fan fiction story in the afternoon and it had taken everything out of her. It's cathartic, but she's not yet sure it's worth it. She has no intention of writing another, and wonders how much longer she'll take this. Maybe she can wrap it up in one more chapter? Have Rook come home, but he and Nikki make a clean break and that's it. The entire fandom would come down on her head, figuratively pummel her to death, but so what? Not that the entire fandom reads her, anyway, not even a tiny percent, but she has followers. She's picked up a few more with each chapter, too, which gives her a boost. She's slightly chagrined that she loves getting reviews, even if some of them are wildly off the mark. She responds to every one, even if all she says is thanks.

The Yankees win by a run in the eleventh inning, which improves her mood, and she takes her laptop from the night stand to see if anyone has reviewed her latest chapter. Eight so far, plus a couple of new followers and a favorite. She recognizes all the reviewers' screen names but one—feelingtheheat—so she starts with that. Wow. She reads it three times. It's long and meticulous and addresses the whole story, not just chapter six. It's really, really smart, and sometimes it feels as if the person is looking directly into her brain. Who the hell is feelingtheheat? She clicks on the screen name to find a profile, but there's nothing there. FTH hasn't written anything, although judging from the quality of this review, s/he should. Joined last February and has only one favorite story. Oh. It's hers. Wow again. She clicks back on her email and there they are, two alerts about feelingtheheat. FTH is also following her now.

She begins to type a reply but is suddenly bashful. Should she address every one of FTH's points, or just pick one or two? Whoever it is has a very analytical mind and seems to know the characters even better than she does, which is saying a lot since she's read _Heat Wave_ half a dozen times and almost is Nikki, despite her disavowal of a screen name. She frets over it until 1:30 a.m., when she finally settles on something short and general, but she's afraid that if she really gets into what FTH discusses, she'll lose it and spill her guts. "I hope I don't sound like an idiot," she says as she hits send, then puts her laptop back on the night stand, and turns out the light.

He knows that it's not healthy to stay up this late, especially eating caffeine-laced m&m's, but what the hell? It's not as though he's adhering to some strict schedule, or any schedule at all. If he hits the hay at 2:00 he can get up at 10:00 and still have the recommended eight hours. Or more, because where is it written that he has to get out of bed at 10:00? He's held off looking at his fan-fic-only email account to see if SoNotNikki79 has responded to his review, but he's waited long enough. He pops a few more chocolates in his mouth and checks. Oh, yes. Yes yes yes yes! And only half an hour ago, so she's a night owl, too. Unless she really is that retired insurance salesman in Walla Walla, where it's only 11 p.m.

Is his heart racing? It feels like it. He holds two fingertips against his neck; his pulse seems rapid. Totally worth it if Beckett's answering, even if she doesn't know that feelingtheheat is, in fact, her partner. Former partner.

 _Hi, feelingtheheat. Thank you so much for your review, which is both the most intelligent and the longest that I've ever received. Not that I get hundreds, like a lot of people on this site, or even dozens, but still. I'm incredibly flattered that you asked if I'm a professional writer. No, not a chance. And am I a cop? You were probably kidding, because I'm the last person you'd think would become one. If I know a lot about police procedure I probably began picking it up as a kid, watching too many cop shows and reading too many mysteries under the covers with a flashlight._

 _You're right, my story is dark. I'm a serious person, and it's interesting for me to explore the serious side of Nikki and Rook, especially Nikki. Maybe because I'm female and feel that I understand her better. I agree that there's fault on both sides, but unlike you I think they're two complicated people who just don't know how to be together._

 _I'm sorry that I don't write faster, but with luck I'll be able to do another chapter before summer's over. Thanks again for your amazingly kind words._

By the time he finishes picking apart the 196 words and scrutinizing them as if he were microbiologist examining an unknown cell cluster—ooh, not a bad turn of phrase, if he does say so—it's after 4:00 a.m, but he's awake as he's ever been. Beckett is SoNotNikki79, he's certain. There's the non-denial denial to the are-you-a-cop question. Yes, she's someone that no one thought would become a cop, but she doesn't say outright that she isn't one. She also neatly dodged his question about how she knows so much about the workings of the NYPD. Then there's "amazingly kind," a phrase she has said to him a number of times. OK, it's not exactly original, but it's her. She admits to being a serious person, too.

What he also detects, but would bet the royalties from his next book that she doesn't, or thinks that she has hidden, is the underlying sadness of these three short paragraphs, especially the middle one. Especially the last sentence of the middle one. "I agree that there's fault on both sides, but unlike you I think they're two complicated people who just don't know how to be together." Is she talking about Nikki and Rook, at least the ones in her head, or is she talking about them, Beckett and Castle? Or is she talking about herself and Demming? Is there trouble in paradise? He hates to be rooting for it, but he is, God forgive him. And why hadn't the timing occurred to him earlier? She posted a chapter on a Saturday afternoon in summer, and responded to his review at 1:30 in the morning. Where the hell is that schmuck Demming?

He has an idea of the kind that in cartoons shows up as a light bulb over the person's head. Maybe if he weren't sex-and-sleep deprived he would't act on it, but he is. He writes a response:

 _Hi, SoNotNikki79, it was nice of you to be in touch. I meant every word I said. I hope you don't think this is too nosy of me, and I guess it is, but even if you're not writing from the experience of a cop, it seems as if you're writing from the experience of someone whose heart has been recently broken. I hope I'm wrong. And if I am, and you're happily married with a couple of kids and a dog, I have to say you convey heartbreak better than almost anyone I've ever read. And I read a lot._

He can't get it back, even if he hires someone this instant to break into her apartment—unless she's shacked up in an Asbury Park shack—find her laptop and delete his PM. It's done. What's she going to say? If she's miserable, so is he. And doesn't misery love company? He doesn't even wince, because that's a cliche he doesn't mind using right about now. No matter what, he wants her to be happy. That's all.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She'd stayed up so late worrying about how to respond to feelingtheheat's review that she didn't wake until close to 10:00. It's Sunday, so it doesn't matter. It's already oppressively hot and humid, so she goes for only a short run and rewards her exhausted, sticky self with a pain au chocolat from the French bakery around the corner. The chocolate is still the tiniest bit melty when she gets home and makes a pot of coffee with the deluxe beans that Castle had given her as a housewarming present. She suddenly flashes on the conversation they'd had all those months ago.

"Maybe I shouldn't use 'housewarming'," he'd said as he presented her with a dozen one-pound bags.

"Why? Because I live in an apartment?"

"No, it's the warming part. I don't want to tempt fate, since your last place went up in flames."

"Thanks for the thoughtful reminder, Castle."

As she takes the first sip she notices that she's feeling a little better, lighter somehow, than she has in weeks. It doesn't take much deductive reasoning to figure out why: it's the review of her "Bad Good Night." She feels appreciated somehow, validated. She's no writer, but she's worked hard on her story and invested emotionally in it in a way that she hadn't planned to do. She wasn't even fully aware that she had until FTH's review. It's nice that someone like that took the time to comment in such a way, and at such length. She won't ever get one like that again, so she'll enjoy it.

It's almost noon; maybe other people who are staying inside for the air-conditioning have read her chapter since last night? When she logs on she's rewarded with six more reviews, and she's grateful for all of them, even if they pale in the shadow of FTH's. But there's a seventh item in her email: a PM from FTH, sent at 4:15 this morning. What? The review had been so extensive, what else could s/he have to say? "Bad Good Night" is hardly _War and Peace_. And at that hour?

She's a little sheepish at how eager she is to open the message. She reads it again and again, through two more mugs of coffee. It's very short, a fraction of the length of the review, and it both unnerves and delights her. How had this person inferred factual heart break from her work of fiction? She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, does she? Not like Castle does. " _It seems as if you're writing from the experience of someone whose heart has been recently broken."_ That's scary. She doesn't want anyone to know what her emotional state is, and she's gone to considerable lengths not to show it. But maybe not enough in fanfic? She feels panic rising, and tries to stem it. Calm down, calm down. FTH doesn't know her. FTH is reacting to "Bad Good Night," not to her. Except that FTH was so on the money in dissecting the story, and now so right about dissecting her. Had even thought she was a cop.

You know what? It _is_ nosy. Why should she admit to FTH that she's heartbroken when she hasn't even admitted it to Lanie? It's none of his business. Her business. What/whoever. She's feeling a little queasy. Unsettled. She's not going to answer this PM. Is she being stalked? Lines must be drawn. There are boundaries. Aren't there? But, but, but, there's FTH's _"I have to say you convey heartbreak better than almost anyone I've ever read."_ She's flattered. Blushingly flattered. Why is that? Because FTH is smart, that's why, and kind, and paid a lot of attention to her story, which is apparently the repository of her interior life at the moment.

Should she reply or not? Where is FTH, anyway? Maybe in Europe? That could account for the time difference. Being up at 4:15 in the morning. When had the review come in? She checks her email again: a little after 9:00 p.m., which was the middle of the night in Europe. Forget it. Maybe in Asia? NEVER MIND she tells herself.

Would it hurt to send another PM? What's the downside? None, really, as long as she reveals only what she wants to reveal. It's a first for her, this incautious move. It feels strangely daring, even though it's something trifling. It is, right? Insignificant? The upside is that all of this is anonymous. Like a confessional, but with no penance required. She really wants to answer. She's reacting to FTH in some sort of visceral way, as if they might be soul mates, and she doesn't even believe in such a thing. She flexes her fingers as if she were about to launch into a piano sonata, not write a message to a fanfic reader.

 _Hi, FTH. I'm not married, happily or un-, and don't have kids or a dog. I'd love to have a dog, but schedule is erratic and my hours often really long, which is not a good combination for successful pet parenthood. Thank you for what you said about how I convey heartbreak; that's a huge compliment from someone who reads as carefully as you. But we've all had our hearts broken, haven't we? I think everyone has a secret sorrow. I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend._

With some trepidation she hits send. Dammit, what a lame ending. _"I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend."_ Well, too late now. She picks up the paper to try to distract herself.

He'd slept fitfully, and finally gives up. It's noon, but he probably got four hours, tops. Hoping that protein will help, he makes himself bacon and eggs and coffee and tries to read _The Times_. After every few sentences, he looks in the direction of his laptop. What are the chances that Beckett has read his PM? More to the point, what are the chances that she wrote back? The answer to the first is probably good, assuming, as he does, that she's alone. To the second? He has no idea. Breakfast may have helped his energy levels, but it had done nothing to suppress his curiosity. He logs on, then fist pumps with such enthusiasm that he spills coffee all over his shirt. He doesn't care. She answered. It's not long, but it's full of information. Clues, anyway.

If he'd had even the faintest doubt about the writer's identity, he hasn't any more. Erratic schedule, long hours: that's a homicide detective's working life. More important, and far more telling, is that once again she's skirted an issue while appearing to have addressed it. Classic Beckett. _"We've all had our hearts broken, haven't we?"_ You tell me, he thinks. You tell me. The thing is, she never seemed so crazy about Tom that if he'd dropped her it would have broken her heart. Was that wishful thinking on his part? He's trying to be rational, to look at this as if he has no skin in the game, but he has. Tons of skin. All his skin. All three layers, and right down to the bone. But he's pretty sure about this: she wasn't in love with Demming. He hated that she was with him, no question, but it hadn't seemed serious, or serious enough to have plunged her into the misery he senses that she's in now. Unless the relationship had changed dramatically since Memorial Day, but how could it? She'd started writing this story at the beginning of the summer, less than a week after he'd seen her. It was full of sadness, or at least regret and anger, right from the start.

Wait. Wait. He pulls his hair with both hands, as if that might draw a brilliant idea from his head. She'd started this story less than a week after he'd seen her, as he left the precinct with Gina. Is it too much to hope that he's the one who broke her heart? No, that's monstrous. That's the last thing he wants. He wants to heal her heart. His feelings for her are deeper than they've been for any other woman, but what are hers for him? He wishes that he were in his office in the loft, where he'd wave the little Rhode Island flag that she'd given him, and look at the word HOPE that's in the middle of it. But if the story she's writing is really about the two of them, he has broken her heart irreparably and she's trying to get him out of her life. And how can that be? What had he done? Are they the _"two complicated people who just don't know how to be together"_? He can fix it, he can, he can make it perfect for them together, if only he can unravel why she thinks they can't.

"Maybe it's not you at all, you self-centered maroon," he says. He was so happy a few minutes ago when he opened her message, and he's so dejected now.

What's the important thing here? That Beckett is unhappy. So what should he do? Try to make her less so. Simple. Not so simple. Maybe simple. All right: what does he do best? Tell a story. So maybe he could use PMs to weave a tale of something? Or a bunch of silly stories? Something just to get them to Labor Day, when he'll be back in the precinct. Because if he can get back to his ratty, rickety chair next to her desk, he can figure out how to woo her. Make her laugh. Maybe love him. That's the goal. A faraway goal, but a goal. And now he feels hopeful again. He just has to make a plan.

He sketches part one quickly. He'll ignore her _"secret sorrows,"_ which are like acid on his soul anyway, just as she ignores some of the things he says. In his first PM, at least, he'll keep everything light.

 _Hi, Snick. Do you mind if I call you that? It's less clumsy than SoNotNikki79, and SNK looks like an acronym for some horrible disease or covert government group. But Snick sounds like a nickname for a Snickers bar, which is one of my favorites._

 _If you could have a dog, what kind would you choose? The other day I saw a one-of-a-kind pooch. Did you ever have that toy made of three blocks of wood stacked on top of each other, with a dowel through the middle? When they were lined up properly each side was a whole animal—a horse, a toucan, a rat, a giraffe. (Okay, not a rat, but I live in New York City, where the rodent population outnumbers the human one, and they're never far from my mind. Rats may be God's creatures, but I think He made a mistake there.) You could turn each block and make very funny composite animals. That's what the dog looked like. He had a long tail and a body at least three times longer. His legs were short and bowed, and his front paws turned out slightly so that he looked like a ballet dancer who's permanently in second position. His head was enormous and almost square, far too big for his body, but it was noble. Really, he looked very aristocratic, a prince among dogs, and had sleek ears that came almost to his shoulders, assuming dogs have shoulders? He was calm in the midst of chaos, namely a street fair full of tube socks and tube cakes. His owner was an elderly woman who was as aristocratic looking as her dog, although unlike him she didn't appear to have been assembled by a bunch of toddlers._

 _"_ _Is he what I think he is?" I asked her. He sniffed my hand and licked it, which might be because he knew I liked dogs, but might also be because my fingers tasted of glazed doughnut._

 _She gave me a politely withering look, but I kept going. "He looks like he might be a Labrador and a dachshund."_

 _"_ _He is."_

 _Really, that's all she said. No credit for my having figured it out. "So, he's a dachador, then? I hope the mother was the Lab."_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _By then I thought what the hell, so I asked, "Did the father have to stand on a chair?" I think I offended her, because she walked away. No sense of humor. She didn't deserve such a nice dog, who licked me again and wagged his tail madly, maybe in gratitude for my acknowledgment of his unusual breed._

 _I'd love to have a pet like that. Have you ever thought about sharing a dog? I could start a website for that. Like Zip cars, only Zip dogs. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, too._

He writes it by the seat of his pants and sends it without proof reading it or second guessing himself, though he does mentally pat himself on the back about the paws looking like a dancer's feet in second position, which he remembers from Alexis's ballet classes years ago.

And with that, he falls asleep. When he comes to an hour later he begins to worry about it. She might think he's a lunatic and never PM him again. Except she likes dogs, so she should appreciate the story at least a little, shouldn't she? She wants a dog. He hadn't known that. Maybe in the fall he could suggest that they share one, though he'll have to come up with a way to suggest it without revealing his feelingtheheat identity. If Bruce Wayne could keep his a secret, he could, too. He smiles when he remembers what Beckett said when she saw his office, not long after they began working together. "Wow. I feel like Alfred in the Batcave for the first time." That's how he learned that she was a Batman fan.

Beckett comes home from a terrible movie that she'd talked herself into seeing. The popcorn was stale and over-salted, and two teenagers in front of her spent the entire time with their tongues down each others throats and their hands down each others pants. It irritated her, but it was a better show than what was on the screen. During the numerous boring stretches of the movie her mind kept drifting to the last line of FTH's message. _"And I read a lot."_ Even now when she's back in her apartment it's gnawing at her. It's not unpleasant; she just wishes that she understood why it's lodged in her brain. It reminds her of something, or someone, but she can't place it.

FTH. Is there a chance that he replied to her PM? He? When did FTH become he? When she started thinking of him that way, that's when. It didn't happen in a blinding flash, but gradually. The unknown-gender reviewer became a man. She's reacting to him as if he's a man. There. She said it. He really does feel like her soul mate. No. Ridiculous. She doesn't know him. She's spent way too much time alone, that's all. She'll prove it. She'll just check to see if he's sent her a message. No, she'll wait. "You know what this reminds me of?" she asks the room, though she's the only one there. " _You've Got Mail_." She'd bought the DVD but never opened it, and it's here on a shelf. She and her mother had gone to see the movie when it opened, during Christmas break of her sophomore year at Stanford. They'd loved it so much that they'd gone again, and planned to go a third time before she she had to fly back to California. They'd never had the chance. Her mother was murdered the day before their movie date.

She trembles a little as she unwraps the DVD, but she pops it in the player, and sits down to watch. It's as delicious as it was ten and a half years ago. Castle would like it. He loves coincidence and he loves movies that are set in New York. Of course, he's probably seen it a zillion times. Maybe with Alexis. Father-daughter bonding, like her experience with her mother.

Okay, she's waited a decent interval. Time to check her email. If FTH has sent her a message, she'll examine it dispassionately, to test her reaction. But when she sees that he has, her hand flies to her mouth, all of its own accord. Her heart rate kicks up, too. She reads his PM quickly, then slowly, then very slowly. Dachador. Zip dogs. It sounds like something Castle would say. Do. Write.

 _"_ _And I read a lot."_ Oh, God. That's why it's been haunting her. It's Castle. FTH is Castle. Holy shit. She slams down the lid of her laptop as if she were putting out a fire, and feels her hands on her cheeks. They're on fire, too.

 **A/N** Thank you for all your cheerleading for this bit of the story, which took me by (happy) surprise. There will be one more chapter in this fanfic setting, and then the story will move to Season 3.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Throughout Sunday afternoon and evening, and as he fell asleep that night, he was excited. When he raced out of bed on Monday morning, he was wishful. By dinnertime, he was restless. The weather turned stormy on Tuesday, and so did his mood. At the beginning of the day he was gloomy; by sunset—though the sun was obscured by the rain and clouds—he was annoyed. On Wednesday, as he slides into despair, he contemplates having a liquid lunch. Beckett has disappeared. There has been no response to his PM, and no new chapter for "Bad Good Night." Has Demming returned and swept her off her feet? No. He's not the sweeping kind. She isn't staying away because she's busy with a fresh case, either, because there haven't been any. He's checked through every back channel he has: there's a homicide in the Twelfth's jurisdiction for a week. So what is it? Maybe she slipped and has a concussion and has forgotten her fanfic password? Not likely, even to him.

What does seem likely is that he annoyed or spooked her. But how? What in his story about the dachador could have done that? Or his dog-sharing suggestion? He hadn't said that he wanted to share a dog with her, although he does. It's not as though he's stalking her. He's just a friendly, supportive, amusing (he hopes), nameless, faceless person from New York City who's hanging out in fanfic land.

He scratches at his three-day-old beard and ticks off his emotional states of the last few days: excited, wishful, restless, gloomy, annoyed, despairing. Six. It feels like a variation on the seven stages of grief, but he's not at all happy contemplating the seventh stage, which is acceptance. He's not accepting this. No way. Beckett can't be gone, and neither can her alter ego, SoNotNikki79. He's going to get them back. He opens a double fudge Yoo-hoo, the chocolate drink beloved of ten-year-old American boys; he may be an adult, but he craves the sweetness and the comfort, and when he reaches the bottom of the bottle he comes to a decision. Almost. He'll either PM her again, or go into the city and try to see her, much as he'd planned to do in Asbury Park. Except this time he won't be in a Ferrari with Bruce Springsteen, and she won't—please, please, please—be with Demming.

"Hey, Beckett," he'd say nonchalantly, "how's your summer going?"

And she'd answer, "Hey, Castle. Summer's been awful, so I started writing fan fiction. I was totally depressed until a brilliant reader reviewed my story. It gave me such confidence, you know? I understand now why you always want to know what people are saying about your books."

No, that's his stage-two, wishful self returning. What she'd say is, "Hey, Castle. I thought you weren't coming back until September."

Okay. Fine. He'll compose another PM, and this time he'll read it over carefully before he sends it. It has to be to the point. It has to reel her back in. He opens his laptop and puts his feet on the desk, his default thinking position, and starts to mull over what to write.

She's staring at her laptop. Since Sunday, when she realized that her fanfic pen pal is Castle, she's been looking blankly at the screen every evening, all evening. She's hardly slept. The whole point of writing her story had been to purge him from her system, and what happened? He's embedded in her soul more deeply than ever, that's what. She doesn't think she can bear to have him come back in September, knowing that he's with Gina. He'll be sitting in his chair next to her desk, close enough for her to smell the perfume that Gina leaves on his skin when she kisses him goodbye in the morning. Castle is with Gina. Maybe she could have prevented it, if only she'd told him in time that she wanted to spend Memorial Day with him. But the fact is, he'd chosen Gina. He's been complaining to her about his second ex-wife almost as long as she's known him, and yet there he is, cuddled up with his frosty ex-wife/publisher, melting the ice off her.

Her exchange with feelingtheheat had made her ridiculously happy. She'd felt as is if she were in the middle of a real-life _You've Got Mail_ , but now that she knows who FTH is, it's as though she's been slam-dunked into _Casablanca_. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." Funny, the character who says that in the movie is named Rick. But she, Kate, is the one saying it here, out loud.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine."

She shakes her head. She's aching to respond to his PM about dogs, but she can't. It would make putting him behind her that much more painful. Excruciating. She's going to read his review one last time, and that will be it. She won't look at it again. It's late, and maybe it will help her sleep, lull her into some better, unexpected place.

Wow. How did she get here? It's a gorgeous room that might be part of a hotel suite. From the club chair where she's sitting, leaning back against a down-filled cushion covered in petal-pink moire, she can see part of a door and the edge of something that could be a placard of hotel rates. If so, they'll be astronomical. There are other doors, too, but they're all closed. This elegant living room must be twice the size of hers. One whole wall is windowed, but the silk curtains are drawn, so she has no clue where she is. The lighting is elegant and low. She closes her eyes for a moment, maybe more, but opens them when she hears a quiet voice to her left.

It's Castle. He's barefoot, dressed in a sky blue shirt that she's never seen before, and a pair of jeans so form-fitting that they must have been made by a tailor. She's sure he's commando, and has to force herself to look up. "Is this seat taken?" he asks, pointing to the matching chair that's just a foot away from hers.

"Uh, no."

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"No. Yes. I mean, no, I don't mind if you join me, and yes, please do."

She can smell his fifteen-dollar-a-bar soap when he settles into the chair. "Are you comfortable here?"

"Oh. Yes. Absolutely." Comfortable? Is he kidding? She wants to hurl herself out of her chair and onto him.

"Not too comfortable, I hope." He's smiling at her. His whole face is smiling at her, and somehow he has two champagne glasses in his hand—where the hell had they come from? He gives one to her, touching the rim of his against hers. When he strokes a fingertip across the inside of her wrist she almost faints. She might have, too, if it hadn't sent an electric charge from her navel, then due south.

"Too comfortable?" How was she able to say that? And why had she said something that idiotic?

"I wouldn't want you falling asleep on me, Beckett." He takes a sip of champagne and sets his glass on the tiny table between them. "Well, I do want you to fall asleep on me, but not here. I mean later, in bed." He tilts his head towards one of the doors, then leans forward, pulls the elastic from her pony tail, and runs his fingers through her hair. "I love that you've let you hair grow."

Dear God, her panties are wet. He can't see them, can he?

His hand moves across her cheek, and he cradles her jaw. He just looks at her; he's silent—she hadn't known he could be completely quiet for so long—as he runs the soft pad of his thumb back and forth below her eye. "You have beautiful cheekbones, do you know that? When you move, or when the light changes, there's the most amazing shifting patterns of shadows. It makes your face so complex. And this little mole under your eye." He touches it with the tip of his index finger, and she shivers. "Do you hate it?"

She can't answer. She's tongue-tied, and there's so much she wants to do with her tongue, though none of it involves speech.

"I hope you don't. A lot of women would. They'd think of it as an imperfection, but to me it just adds more character. And it's sexy."

No, sexy is the long muscle that she can see twitching in his thigh. Sexy is the scar over his eyebrow. Does he know that? She wants to kiss it, to run her tongue down it, but she still can't move. Some force from somewhere opens her mouth and causes her to talk, but she's not in control of what it makes her say. "Where's that bed you mentioned, Castle? It better be in the next room or I'll tear your fucking clothes off you right now."

His impossibly blue eyes are so close, and his breath skates across her cheek and her ear. "My fucking clothes? My fucking clothes are my skin, Kate. I hope yours are, too. That's all I want us to wear. Nothing but skin."

In one move—she hadn't known he could be that graceful, either—he scoops her into his arms, carries her to a door which he magically opens, and sets her on a bed. The sheets are already turned down. And then his hands are on her breasts and he's kissing her so deeply and erotically, that she can hardly breathe. She trying to unzip his pants, but she's too clumsy. He's kissing her even more deeply, and her moan is so loud, protracted, physical, that it wakes her up. She looks around the room in a daze. She's in her apartment, not a hotel, and she's alone. She either went to bed naked or took off her shirt and panties in her sleep, because they're on the floor. Her chest is heaving. She's had sex dreams before, but nothing like this. And never about Castle. This is a first, an explosive, heart-pounding first. She rolls over to get out of bed and is startled to find her laptop next to her left hip. It's warm, so it's still on. When she clicks the mousepad the screen lights up, illuminating her email account. There's one new, unread item, a PM sent twenty minutes ago, at 1:45 a.m. It's from feelingtheheat. For the first time in days, she laughs. Oh, she was feeling the heat just now, all right. The wild minority part of her overrules the cautious majority, which is most of her, and she opens the message.

 _Dear SoNotNikki79,_

 _I haven't heard from you since Sunday, and I'm afraid that I must have offended you somehow. That's the last thing I wanted to do, and I usually have good manners, so please accept my apologies._

 _In your last PM to me you mentioned that everyone has secret sorrows. I thought that was a lovely phrase, but I also thought that I shouldn't comment on it since I was probably being too personal. Told you I was nosy! There was another reason, too: this has been a difficult summer for me. One of secret sorrow, as you'd say. Regrets, mostly. I've been on my own since early June, wallowing in self-pity. When I happened on your story I was so excited: we may look at Nikki and Rook in different ways, but your take on it, the direction you took them, fascinated me. It pulled me away from myself, and God knows I needed that._

 _More important, I loved our exchanges. I felt as if I'd popped up in_ The Shop Around the Corner _, an old rom-com before anyone called them that. It's a favorite of mine; you might have seen it in its updated form,_ You've Got Mail _._

 _We've been in touch for only a short time, but—I hope you won't mind this—I feel as if I've known you forever. If you don't reply to this, I'll understand, but please know that my apology is sincere. I'll close by saying that I miss hearing from you._

 _Feelingtheheat_

She reads it again and again until she can almost recite it. He's on his own. He's been on his own since early June, _"wallowing in self-pity."_ That must mean that he and Gina parted ways, mustn't it? There's no other explanation. This changes everything, except for one thing. She has to be more cautious. She can't let Castle know, or even suspect, that she's SoNotNikki79. She's got strong feelings for him, but she's not rushing into anything. The man has two ex-wives and a string of ex-girlfriends. When he comes back in September, she'll be the Beckett he said goodbye to at the end of May. At least, that's what she'll let him think. It will be obvious, fairly soon, that she and Demming aren't together, but that's all. In the meantime, she'll write him back, but she'll wait until she's had some sleep. Besides, she doesn't want to look too eager.

Her alarm goes off at 5:15, half an hour earlier than usual, so that she has time to put on her fanfic hat and write a short PM.

 _Hi, FTH,_

 _I'm the one who should apologize. I was in a funk and never answered your last PM. You didn't offend me one whit._

She crosses out _"one whit."_

 _You didn't offend me at all. In fact, you made me laugh. You also sent me to Google. There really is such a dog, crossbreed, though it's known as a dachsador. I like your word, dachador, better. The other's a little too cutesy for my tastes. Funny how an S can mess something up. Like ass and pass, for instance._

She crosses out _"Like ass and pass, for instance."_ It's too flirty. Too Beckett-and-Castle. She ends the paragraph with " _Funny how an S can mess something up"_ and starts a new one.

 _Your Zip dog idea is a winner. If I ever take a vacation, I'll take a Zip dog with me._

 _I'm sorry that you've had a sorrowful summer, and hope that things are looking up_. _If you don't hear from me for a while it's because I'm busy at work and also trying to finish "Bad Good Night." Maybe next weekend or the one after I'll watch_ The Shop Around the Corner _on Netflix_. _Thanks for telling me about it._

 _Snick_

At 7:15, when she's ready to leave for work, she sends the PM, and turns off her laptop. On the way down the stairs of her building, she catches herself humming "The Man I Love" and claps her hand over her mouth. "Oh, my God, Kate," she whispers. "Shut up."

In his sprawling kitchen in the Hamptons, he's drinking coffee and chewing on a piece of toast. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't check his fanfic email account until lunchtime. On the other hand, lunchtime is not set in stone. If he started work at, say, 4:00 in the morning, he'd eat lunch 8:00 or 9:00. It's almost 9:00 now. He swallows the last bit of toast, puts his mug in the dishwasher, and heads for the shower.

It takes him a little longer than usual to shave, since he hasn't been near a razor in four days. Dressed in a clean tee shirt and shorts, he returns to the kitchen. The stove clock says 9:32. Lunchtime! He may not have started work at 4:00, but where is it written that there must be a four-hour interval between breakfast and lunch? Nowhere. He turns on his laptop.

She's back. She'sbackshe'sbackshe'sback. He's so happy that he doesn't even mind that she might not write him again for a while. He's a born optimist, and he hates being pessimistic. From nowhere, some lines of Tennyson—something he read when Alexis was a baby and jotted down—loom up in his memory. "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering 'It will be happier'." That's all he needs until September, which as far as he's concerned is the new year. A new year with Beckett. In his mind she's now also Snick, but she's never going to know that. Never. That's his secret. He's a hopeful man again.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you again for all your support. If you're in the US, have a wonderful Fourth of July. If you're not, have some fireworks anyway!


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Kate Beckett prides herself on her self-control, her ability to resist temptation. She still has masses of it, except in this new, teeny-tiny—who's she kidding? mammoth—area of her life. She's like a junkie, scratching her bare arms, probably twitching, her pupils dilated like someone who's barely hanging on until the next hit.

It's not heroin that she's craving, it's her fanfic exchanges with Castle, though she continually reminds herself to refer to him as feelingtheheat. She's sure as hell not letting him know who she really is. To him, she's Snick. She loves that he calls her that, so much so that she'd bought a huge bag of bite-size Snickers and stashed it in the freezer. Before she sits down to send a message to FTH or to read one of his, she grabs a couple of the miniature bars; sometimes a handful is her dinner. "This is protein," she says, mentally justifying herself to a phantom nutritionist as she crunches a peanut covered in whatever that delicious goo is inside the candy. "It is."

She'd intended to play it cool, not get too close, so she'd told him that if he didn't hear from her for a while it was because she was busy at work or writing the next chapter of her story. She's neither. Well, not entirely. She really is busy at work—homicide is not on holiday—but as soon as she gets home, no matter what time it is, she logs on to the Nikki Heat fanfic site. She'd planned to get back to her story, but in her brain it's taken an unexpected turn for the better, and her impetus to write has receded.

Her resolve not to PM him had lasted exactly a day. Not even 24 hours, but at least she'd written back on a different day of the week. Shortly after midnight she'd sent him this message. _I've been mulling over Zip dogs. I really do love the idea, but they'd be so confused, wouldn't they? What if they had five different part-time owners in a week? Maybe even five in a day? Wouldn't they start thinking, "Who's your Daddy?'' I'm worried about them._

She'd barely swallowed the Snickers when his reply landed in her inbox.

 _I'd have a canine psychiatrist on staff. Plus all the dogs would go through counseling before they started. They're basically therapy dogs, right? So they'd be cool with a lot of part-time owners. Hey, what if Snoop Dogg rented one when he was in town? Every dog would want to zip out with him, but I'd give priority to a beagle, the original Snoopy, wouldn't you?_

She can't help it: she laughs. Oh, Snoopy. How she'd longed for a real Snoopy when she was little, but her parents had said no. "Who'd walk him at six in the morning in the winter, when it's dark and cold?" her father had asked. "Or take him out when it's raining? Not you, Katie." Has she ever told Castle that? She ruminates on it for a while and decides that she hasn't. Absolutely has not. Bringing that up in a message here will not jeopardize her identity.

 _I was dying to have a Snoopy when I was little, but my parents unreasonably refused on the grounds that they'd always be the one walking him before dawn._ She'd paused. Maybe she could ask Castle if he'd wanted one? What stance his parents might have taken? See if he'd fess up to being fatherless? Nah, she's not going to go push it. Well, just a little. _How about you? Did you want a dog?_

She hadn't had to wait long to find out.

 _Yeah, I did, but especially when I hit puberty. I thought having a dog would be a great way to get girls._

Had he been aware that he'd just given away his gender? Unless she was supposed to think that FTH is a lesbian, which seems improbable. It had been obvious to her for some time that FTH is a man, even before she understood that he's Castle: everything about him and what he'd written screams XY chromosome to her.

 _Get girls, huh? How did that work for you? If there had been Zip dogs when you were 13 you could have used your allowance on them. Tried different breeds on different girls, see if that made a difference."_

She'd wondered what breed he'd have picked? A poodle? A Lab, a mutt, a cocker spaniel, a Bernese Mountain dog? What would he have chosen if he'd wanted to go out with her?

 _Sorry to say I never got a chance to find out. My mother wouldn't let me get any pet that required more maintenance or money than a turtle, and I can't say I blame her since she was a single parent. "A boy and his dog is one too many for me, kiddo," she used to say. "And I'm sticking with the boy."_

That had been a week and a half ago, but Martha's voice is still in her ears. _"I'm sticking with the boy_. _"_ She wants to stick with the boy, too. The man.

In the days—nights, mostly—since then, she and Castle/FTH had talked about everything. Not quite everything, and nothing too serious, but often flirty. She loves the safe danger of it. But the case that she, Ryan, and Esposito closed a few hours ago was grim and sad, and they'd gone out to a bar afterwards. She wishes that she could talk to Castle about it, but she can't. It's late and she she's had too much to drink, but she turns on her computer. A little fanfic chat should cheer her up. Oh! He's already left her a message.

 _Have you seen the new story by rook-n-nikki, that writer that everyone swoons over? Only one chapter so far and it's rated M, but I do have to wonder if she's actually ever had sex._

She hasn't read it, but she finds it and skims it in a few minutes. He wasn't kidding.

 _Either that or she's flexible in ways I'd never thought possible, and I'm very, very flexible._ Oopsy, maybe she shouldn't have said that. Sent that. Too late now. She's had a lot to drink, but it's been a hell of a day and she could use some wine. She gets up, pours herself a glass, and changes into an oversized tee shirt. All she'll have to do before she hits the hay is brush her teeth. Is Castle still awake? That PM was from two hours ago. She'll just check. And…he's definitely up: he's already answered.

 _Oooh, how flexible are you, Snick?_

She's not making that mistake again. She takes another sip of wine and sends a four-word response.

 _My lips are sealed._

His PM arrives so quickly that he must be a much better typist than she realized.

 _If your lips are sealed how good can the sex be?_

As she drains her glass she has just enough wits about her to know that drinking on an empty stomach is a bad idea, but the thought doesn't stay with her long enough to prevent her from replying.

 _Depends which lips we're talking about._

Oh, fuck. Did she just write that? To Castle? It's practically sexting. With Castle. Well, that's a first. An embarrassing and anonymous first, except that it's a little exciting. She'd never inadvertently propositioned someone, and it makes her a little squirmy. Squirmy in the best way. She has to sign off for the night before she says something worse—as if what she'd just said weren't bad enough. Here goes.

 _Time for us to fall into bed._

No! No, no, no! Bring that back. Please God, let lightning hit Castle's computer before he sees that message. That wasn't what she'd meant to type. She'd meant "Time for me to fall into bed." Me. Solo. One person. As in going to sleep, all by herself. Obviously God did not deliver that bolt to the Hamptons house, because Castle answers before she can log off.

 _Give me your address and I'll be right over._

Now what? Her head is pounding. She can't not answer, can she? "You really screwed the pooch this time," she says, and buries her face in her shirt. She looks up and takes a few deep, should-be-calming breaths before letting her sweaty hands return to the keyboard.

 _I don't live anywhere near you._

That's not a lie. In summer he lives on eastern Long Island, which is nowhere near her Manhattan apartment. Two hours away, at least. And he has no idea where she lives. Well, he does, but he doesn't know where SoNotNikki79 lives. She could be in Moscow, for all he knows. Not just Moscow, Russia, but Moscow, Tennessee or Moscow, Michigan or Moscow, Idaho or Moscow, Ohio or Moscow, Texas. Oh, God, this is what he's done to her brain. Turned it to mush. Made her resort to the geography game that she'd invented in fourth grade, just to distract herself from him. She loved that game, finding places all over the world that had the same name. Then the next year, when she was 10, she'd discovered that there's a town called Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and oh, boy. Yeah, of course thinks of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, when she's trying not to dwell on the fact that she had just said to him, _"Time for us to fall into bed."_ Not to mention her comment about lips. Maybe a lightning bolt will strike her laptop. Or her. Put her out of her misery, or whatever this is. She looks warily at her screen. Oh, hell, he's messaged her again.

 _Bet you do. Bet you live in New York City, too._

What made him say that? How can he be so sure? He'd told her that he lives in the city, but she's never even hinted at where she is. She has to put a stop to this.

 _What makes you think I live in New York?_

He must have been waiting for the question, because he's right back.

 _Because all the urban details in "Bad Good Night" are perfect. No one who isn't very familiar with NYC could pull that off, no matter how much Googling you might do. You've got the smell, the pulse, everything, right. So, can I come over?_

She's not going to admit to it. No. She'll close this down. Keep it short, simple, and non-explicit.

 _Night, FTH._

She shoves her laptop into a drawer. How is she supposed to sleep after this? The buzz of alcohol has worn off enough that she's aware that she shouldn't take a sleeping pill. She hates to resort to them, anyway. They make her feel as if she's been hit by a truck and left in the gutter. So she dabs some lavender oil under her nose before she crawls into bed, and hopes that will help. She swears she's staying away from her fanfic account for a long, long time. She's going cold turkey. It's the only way.

Lying in bed, with the windows wide open so that he can hear the susurration of the leaves on the trees, Richard Castle cannot fall sleep. The exchange that he'd had with Beckett had both floored and aroused him. In the space of a few minutes she'd worked him up so much that he'd almost gotten into his car, driven into Manhattan, and rung her doorbell. He'd have kept at it, too, until she'd let him in. And then what? And then he'd have told her everything. Bad idea, some gnat-like voice had told him. He'd paid attention, much as he loathes gnats. He'd left her a short response to her even PM, instead, and called it a night. Except that the night's morphing into day now and he's still wide awake, thinking about Beckett.

That lips thing! Beckett! That was one hell of a first. And he won't forget it. If he's still awake with the sun comes in the east-facing window, he'll get up and make coffee. Make coffee and a plan. It takes him until 3:00 to come up with it, but he does.

She had slept last night, oh, had she slept, and that was a problem. She had the most vidid, delicious, filthiest dream about Castle. In her dream, he did indeed come over. And over. It's lunchtime now and the boys have gone out for sandwiches. She, however, is considering hypnosis, aversion therapy, maybe methadone. She's positive that Castle PMed; she wants to read it and she doesn't. She does, but she can't. When she sees him next month, she has to be her cool, detached self. Can't be rushing in like some hormonal teenager. He has two ex-wives and innumerable ex-girl friends. That should be her mantra. Easy does it, one day at a time, whatever. She sits up straighter in her chair and wills herself to focus on the report she's filing on yesterday's case.

Willpower evaporates in her apartment that evening. It can't hurt to look. Truly, just look. She'd told Castle she might take a break, and she hadn't. Now she can, as soon as she checks her fanfic email this one last time. There are two PMs, the first sent a few minutes after she'd signed off, and the second late this afternoon. Huh. She clicks on the earlier one first.

 _Really? Night? That's all you got for me? I'll be reminding you of this conversation later._

Oh, Lord, don't remind me, she thinks. Please, please, please. She squeezes her thighs together and proceeds to the recent message.

 _Dear Snick,_

 _If I got a dog would you go out with me? It would be a greyhound, because in my mind you're sleek and fast. Fast in the good sense. It would be a rescue greyhound, because you've been rescuing me. What do you say? I'd really, really like to go out with you. I want to take you to dinner. I want to dance with you. If you don't live in New York, and I still think you do, I can still come pick you up. I have a car that's even faster than a greyhound. Please?_

 _xo FTH_

A greyhound? He thinks of her as a greyhound? She's touched and pleased. It's so him, it's—What the hell? What the fucking hell? He's asking SoNotNikki79 on a date? He wants to dance with her? She'd rescued him? She, Kate Beckett, thought that he was longing for her, his partner. How could she have been so stupid? He doesn't know that she's SoNotNikki79. He's been flirting outrageously with someone he doesn't know; well, he does know her, but he doesn't know that he knows her. It's like a freaking hall of mirrors. And the upshot is that he wants to go out with someone else—someone who doesn't exist outside the ether of fan fiction—rather than her. She feels as though she's being cheated on. She doesn't care if that's fucking irrational. It's true. He broke up with Gina and now he's set his eye on Snick. OK, Snick happens to be her, but that's irrelevant. And so what if he doesn't know that she and Tom had broken up? That's no excuse. He could have texted her at some point over the summer, asked how she was. Told her about his situation, asked politely about hers. She'd have told him. And none of this would have happened. Goddammit.

If she weren't so exhausted, she'd drive to the Hamptons and smack him one. Tell him off, anyway. And then she'd break the news that he won't be able to jump into bed with Snick, because Snick is only virtually alive, alive only in the virtual world. And won't he be surprised? Yeah, the surprise will be on him, and she's never going to speak to him again except at work, and he'll probably be clearing out of there soon. But instead of going to the Hamptons, she goes to bed, this time after taking an Ambien which she prays will render her unconscious and dreamless until her alarm goes off in the morning.

It's been a week since he'd asked Beckett/Snick out, and he hasn't heard a word. Not yes, no, maybe, I'll think about it, nothing. She'd virtually propositioned him, and when he'd replied—decorously—with a dinner invitation, she'd frozen him out. He's sure he hadn't offended her with the greyhound comment, so what was it? What happened between _"Depends which lips we're talking about,"_ even the plain-vanilla but perfectly friendly _"Night, FTH,"_ and his invitation? He'd worked hard to make it right, to keep it both serious and light.

And then it occurs to him. Demming. That little weasel has come back into her life. What other explanation can there be? Beckett isn't exactly the Boyfriend-of-the-Month type, so who could she have found in the past seven days? It has to be Demming, emerging from under his weasel rock. He read once that weasels are ferocious, vicious predators. She shouldn't be with someone like that; she should be with him. That's probably why she hasn't finished "Bad Good Night," too. She's busy at night with Demming. He feels as if he's lost her to Demming twice. Well, that's a first. The worst first of his life.

It's the first week of September, almost Labor Day, but he suddenly has no appetite for returning to the Twelfth. He'll stall. Maybe reappear at the end of September. Follow Beckett for a few cases, and resign. He can write a dozen more Nikki Heat books without any more "research." But he can't be that close to her again after everything they've been through lately, even though a lot of it was online. There's nothing more painful than living with than dashed hopes.

Beckett has been stewing since the end of August, and now it's September 22, the autumnal equinox. The official start of fall. The only thing that's fallen so far is her heart. The boys have asked her if she's heard from Castle, and she brushes them off. His book is coming out; she'll pretend that's why he's not here. Why he's not here is probably because he's trying to find SoNotNikki79. Take her to dinner, take her to bed.

She and the boys have a new case today: a much-loved young teacher has been found shot, and Lanie found a small piece of paper clutched in her hand. A paper with an address that turns out to belong to a 32-year-old sculptor, Maya Santorini. When Beckett, Ryan, and Espo arrive the door is open, and they draw their weapons. When they hear a crash from the next room, they rush in and find a dead woman—presumably Ms. Santorini—on a bed and a man with a gun standing over her. It's Castle. Jesus.

"It's not what it looks like," he says.

"It never is. Turn around. Castle, turn around." She cuffs him. "Richard Castle, you're under arrest for murder."

How ironic, she thinks, her teeth grinding. She's arresting Castle for murder and all she wants to do is kill him.

TBC

 **A/N** Many thanks to everyone, and especially to reader Roadrunnerz for the "Who's your Daddy?" Zip dog comment, which I shamelessly appropriated.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** I apologize for the long delay. Summer was fraught, and I was stuck on this story. But things are moving along now. If you've lost track of the storyline after two and a half months, you might want to read chapter 13 to refresh your memory. Thank you to everyone who waited!

When she'd arrested him at the crime scene–Maya Santori's bedroom–she'd been seriously pissed off. Even Ryan, who always stood up for him, had called him a slime bag. What the hell is the matter with them?

That had been an hour ago. Now he's in interrogation, waiting for her, chewing over how everything had imploded in the last few weeks. At the end of summer, when it was clear to him–thanks to his careful reading between the lines of her fanfic PMs–that Beckett had hooked up with Demming again, it crushed him as almost nothing else in his life had. He'd decided not to come back to the precinct, which looks like a good decision, given the hostile reaction he'd just gotten from his former colleagues. After a two-day bender at home in the Hamptons, in which he'd gone through some of his most treasured bottles, he'd sobered up, cleaned up, and crawled back to Gina. Probably not a great decision, but he's working on it. He really is.

But he hadn't banked on what happened today, and seeing Beckett again, even under these circumstances, has brought all the suppressed feelings he has for flooding his system.

She's opening the door. How is it possible that she looks more beautiful than she had the last time he'd seen her? It's been four months; her hair is longer. It's straight, but cut or brushed in a way that it curves slightly to frame her face and makes her cheekbones even more sculptural. Other women would kill for them. What would Maya Santori have made of her? As an artist, she'd been fascinated by facial structure, the play of light. He'll never know now, because Maya Santori is dead and that's why he's here, brought in in cuffs.

He watches Beckett pull out her chair, and sit down. She's wearing a long, dove-gray silk blouse that floats below her hips. It's a perfect color for her, but she looks frighteningly pale. Hadn't she gone to the beach at all this summer, gotten some sun? She and Demming had rented that house at the Jersey Shore, but they'd broken up, so no beach for her. Apparently they'd reconciled around Labor Day, though, so they must have spent their time indoors, making up. Naked as if they'd been at a nudist beach, minus the sun. Shit. Why does she have to look so gorgeous, glowering at him from the other side of the table ? The last time he'd been in here they'd sat side by side. He can still remember, still feel, how close her forearm was to his, almost brushing it, how warm it was. Her radial bone, radiating heat.

She looks so cool now, cool and hot at the same time. She's keeping her distance, physically and emotionally, and she begins stiffly. "You've been informed of your rights, Mr. Castle?"

What? That's how she's going to play this? She's angrier than he'd thought, and he's going to put that card on the table right away. "Why are you so mad at me?"

"Maybe because you were found standing over a dead body with a gun in your hand."

"Yeah, but I told you she was dead when I got there."

"Why didn't you call?"

That takes him by surprise, and he's a little flustered. It may seem a simple question, but it isn't. He ducks it. "I was going to call you. But then you showed up before I could."

In that instant he understands that he's said the wrong thing. She hadn't meant why hadn't he called when he'd found Maya, but why hadn't he called her weeks ago, to let her know when he was coming back? He'd been pretty sure of that, but he'd avoided it. He shouldn't have. He knows it because he knows her tells. He sees the brief hesitation, the slight change in body language. Is she disappointed, too?

"Really? Well, then why did we find you in our victim's apartment?"

"Well, because she called me."

"Oh, so you and Miss Santori were in a relationship." She leans hard on the last word, especially the last letter. She might as well be pulling the pin from a grenade, and he feels unarmed.

"Well, I wouldn't say it was a 'relationship.' I bought a couple sculptures from her." And I wish that she'd done one of you, he adds silently. Oh, what she might have done with you. Talk about a muse.

"Were you sleeping with her?"

Where the hell had that come from? Oh. Jealousy, maybe? She's jealous of Gina even though she's with Demming? It doesn't make sense. "How is that relevant?"

"Motive."

At that point the interrogation—if you could call it an interrogation, or even a conversation—takes a dive. They snipe at each other and it's personal, personal and borderline vituperative. But when he says, "You still with that, uh, cop boyfriend of yours? What was his name again? Demming?" her face changes almost imperceptibly. Almost. He swears he sees hurt there, and before his brain can tell him to keep quiet, he asks, "You broke up?"

She doesn't answer. Instead, she switches back to the case. She's on the attack again, but at least it's about Maya's murder, not their love lives. Or loveless lives, which apparently theirs are. And then Montgomery calls Beckett out of the room, and he stews for a few minutes. When she comes back she tells him that he can go home, that the bullet that killed Maya hadn't come from the gun he'd been holding. He wants to work the case, but she tosses him out. He's too involved, she says. He's a witness, she says, before sending him off with one last personal jab. She sounds depleted. "Castle, go home. Go back to your Hamptons, your ex-wife, your book parties, okay? I've got work to do."

"What did I do?" he asks, but she's already gone, and no one answers. No one answers, but every single face he sees—Montgomery's, Espo's, Ryan's—is glaring. He can't even get a nod out of LT or Harrison, and he goes home, feeling more friendless than he has in years. Is she with Demming or not? He'd ask the boys, but they're not giving him an inch. They're giving nothing but the evil eye.

For the rest of the afternoon he obsesses over Beckett's facial and body language when he'd brought up Demming. Ultimately he decides–he's positive–that she's not with him anymore. Maybe they'd reconciled in late summer, maybe they hadn't, but they're not a couple now. He'd taken up with Gina again for nothing. No one to blame for himself. Still, Beckett doesn't want to tell him, so he can't go rushing at her like a hormonal teenager, despite the fact that he feels like one. He must be adult, take things slowly. Slooowwwwly. He calls Gina, and begs off their date, claiming that he has a titanic headache. Well, that's a first: he's feigning a headache to get out of sex. It makes him laugh.

Beckett is taking a short break, hiding out on the landing in the precinct stairwell, but she's not laughing. She'd been perfectly fine, one hundred percent fine, until Castle had popped up and blown her equilibrium all to hell. There's nothing equ- about her now. Goodbye, equanimity. See you, equability. That son of a bitch not only compromised a crime scene, but he's with Gina. When had that happened? Didn't he break up with her months ago? But he'd sat right there in interrogation and said, "I'm in a relationship." All she could think was, I bet you wish it were with SoNotNikki79, don't you? Your precious Snick. But when she'd asked, "With whom?" he'd said, with a hint of something, "You know with whom." It felt as if her heart had splintered into sharp-edged fragments that should have pierced all her vital organs and caused her death on the spot. Regrettably, it had not. He could have had that on his conscience, damned for all eternity for having been the instrument of her death–right in the middle of the police station, too–and it would have served him right. "Suck it up," she mutters to herself, staring at the grimy brick wall as she gets to her feet. "Break's over. You've got a double homicide to solve."

Except it isn't a double, it's a triple, and who's right in the middle of it? Castle. At the third crime scene. "Following up a lead," he says. She wants to arrest him for criminal trespassing–a charge she knows she can make stick–but she doesn't. She can't help herself. He drives her crazy, and he's with Gina, but when he says sadly and sincerely, "How can I help?" she gives in a little. She doesn't arrest him, though she does try to send him home again. She tells him she's sorry that his friend the sculptor was murdered, but she also wants to clear the air. "That doesn't mean that you can just show up and act like nothing has happened. The truth is, is if you wanted to come back, you would've already, but you didn't."

That should send him out, his tail between his legs, shouldn't it? Make him well and truly remorseful? But it doesn't. "You ever stop and think maybe I was waiting to hear from you?" he shoots back. "Do you know what these bodies are? A sign. A sign from the universe telling us we need to solve this case together. You don't want to let the universe down, do you?"

Now she well and truly caves, and not just because he'd brought her coffee. Really. That wasn't a factor. Neither were his eyes or his smile or his shirt. She's just employing good sense: she's letting him stay for this, and that's it.

Until they start building theory. Their old rhythm is back, as if they were reconciled lovers–no, no, not that, not lovers–and she can feel it everywhere in her body. He bets her that he'll crack the case before she does, and she accepts the challenge: if she wins, he can never come back; if he wins, he gets to return as her partner. Several hours in, they turn to each other, nose-to-nose, and say giddily in synch, "I know who the killer is!" and she's a goner.

Not long after they close the case, and she tells him that he won the bet. To his credit, he offers her an out: "Look, if you don't want"–.

She doesn't take it. "No, you won fair and square."

He goes home a happy man, and Espo strides up to her. "So, how long before Castle did you know?"

She won't answer, of course. But he's right: she knew long before Castle. She threw the bet. That's a first she thinks, as she makes her way to the subway. She, the most competitive person on the force, let him win. Oh, she'd thrown a hand once when they are playing poker, long ago, but that had been a very different thing. And it didn't involve her heart.

She goes home a happy woman, and takes a long bath. Her mind keeps returning to Castle, who's gotten back under her skin and in her bloodstream. She's tried to be angry at him, but she can't. She holds her hand up and watches the water trickle through her soapy fingers. Maybe that's what will happen with Gina: she'll just trickle away. Maybe Castle is in the tub now, too. He's probably a shower guy, but she'd gotten a look at the Rolls-Royce of a tub in his bathroom last winter, and he definitely uses it. Yeah, he could be in the tub. There's a small towel on the floor next to her, along with her cell. She reaches out, dries off her hands, picks up her phone up and starts texting.

"Night, Castle."

The phone must be attached to him, because his reply is instantaneous. "Night, Beckett. Aren't you in bed yet? Long day."

"Nope. In the bath." That should get him going. Take that, Gina.

Jesus, she just texted him while she's naked. And slippery. And hot. Good thing Gina isn't here to see his face–or the rest of him, which is unmistakably reacting to the news that Kate's in the tub. He answers carefully. "Be careful getting out. Don't want you braking anything."

Oh, she's got him hot and bothered: he typed "braking" for "breaking." She can't let that go. "You know me, Castle, I don't put the brakes on much. Night."

He gurgles when he reads it.

Over the next few weeks, she's careful not to bring up Gina, and so is he. In the middle of October, when they're working a complicated case involving a complex web of doctors and nurses and the wrong body in a coffin, she senses some genuine cracks in the Castle-Gina relationship. She's scrupulous about not taking sides: he's angry that Gina got concert tickets for Alexis when he'd pulled a lot of strings to do the same. The case also concerns a romantic jail break–something she'd not though possible, though Castle had. When they've wrapped everything up and are heading out, Esposito said he'd never break anyone else out; he'd take care of himself.

"It's the law of the jungle. I got to look out for numero uno."

"Wow," the indignant Castle says. "Nothing like a hypothetical prison term to let you know who your friends really are."

"Don't worry, Castle," she says, without thinking. "I'd get you out." The two of them ride silently in the elevator, walk wordlessly through the lobby and out the door. As he turns right and she's about to turn left, she touches the sleeve of his jacket. She's not thinking again. "Want to get a drink?"

He has the look of someone who's been hit with a baseball bat and then been given the key to the city. "A drink?"

No way out now. She doesn't care. This is not a date. No one would misconstrue it as a date. She's not asking him out on a DATE. She might, one day, when Gina is out of the picture, and she does seem to be fading, but not now. "Yeah. You know, liquid with varying percentages of alcohol. Something often shared by friends after a hard day at work."

Gina is out of town. Besides, they both know they're on the skids, and the break-up is inevitable. Besides, this is not a date. Just a drink. "You're on," he says. "And I'm buying."

"Good, 'cause you're the one with the platinum credit card. I'm ordering something expensive."

She thinks the clock on the wall in the bar says it's ten o'clock. Not a bar. More like a lounge. Very comfy. "This is comfy, Castle," she says, rattling the ice cube in the bottom of her glass. What is she drinking? He ordered. It's so smooth. He's so smooth.

"Very comfy. I like this place."

"I think I might have had a little too much to drink."

"Really? You seem fine to me."

"I do?"

"Very fine. The finest. New York's finest."

"I think I might be snickered." She's tilting almost into his shoulder.

What had she just said? This is the first time he's seen her drunk, and he's had a lot to drink, too. He must be hearing things. Wish-fulfillment things. "What?"

"Snickered. I'm snickered."

"Snockered?"

"No snickered, 'cause I'm Snick."

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's one thing to know that Beckett is Snick; it's something else entirely to hear her say it. Out loud. Voluntarily. Surprisingly. And drunkenly.

That's the black lining of the silver revelation: she's had too much to drink. To take advantage of that would be, well, to take advantage. It would ruin everything. He's having to work all this out very quickly, like a human CPU, before she says something else, or before he says something titanically stupid. If he acts on it, which of course he's aching to do, she'll regret it tomorrow, which means that he'll regret it even longer. If she were really ready to tell him, she'd have told him when she was sober.

He's all ready to gloss over it, just say, "Time to go," or "Want another?" when something hits him. If she's telling him that she's Snick, which would be utterly meaningless if he hadn't been her secret fanfic correspondent, then she must know that he's feelingtheheat. FTH. Mustn't she? Jesus, how can that be? He'd been so careful. He's suddenly as sober and clear-headed as someone who has been drinking coffee all night, not single malt. Someone who's been standing in an ice-cold shower, not feeling the heat, which he most assuredly is.

She hasn't had anything to eat, which explains why she's looser and drunker than he is. He's had at least two bowls of salted nuts in the last three hours, and some fancy little snacks that he consumed without really identifying them because all of his senses are directed at her. She looks spectacular and she sounds perfect, especially when she giggles, as she's been doing while she's sipped the most recent drink. She smells intoxicating; he could have skipped the booze and just inhaled the air around her. He'd touch her if he dared, and he'd taste her, too. But not now. Not yet. But he's mentally waving the little Rhode Island HOPE flag that she gave him two years ago. Frustrating as this moment is, it has given him hope in a big, big way.

Uh-oh. He's ruminated too long. She's saying something. "Snick." This time the giggle that follows rolls over him like butterscotch. "Am I snickering, Castle?"

"No, that's laughing. You're laughing, Beckett."

She looks a little at sea, shakes her head—her hair had come out of the pony tail during the previous round of drinks—and asks, "No snickering for Snick?"

To buy a little time he shoves a handful of miniature pretzels in his mouth and chews them slowly. He uses his other hand to sneak his phone out of his pocket, slip it onto his thigh, and set the timer for a very brief period. His resistance is crumbling like old, desiccated concrete. See? he asks himself. You're so besotted that even your unexpressed similes suck. "No, no. Laughing's much better," he says at last. "It's full out. You have a great laugh." He stuffs some more pretzels in his mouth and has just swallowed them when the timer goes off. Thank you, God. And Steve Jobs. "Oh!" he says, holding up the phone. "Good thing I set my alarm. Have to pick up Alexis at a, um, from a school thing." He slides off the banquette and stands up, dropping at least fifty dollars more than necessary on the table. If he had a thousand bucks with him he'd leave that as a tip, just for the memory of her saying, "I'm Snick." Just thinking "Snick" makes every part of him buzz.

"C'mon, Beckett," he urges, extending a hand to help her up. "I'll take you in a cab." He ushers her speedily out the front door and hails the taxi that just dropped off a passenger on the corner.

Fortunately her apartment is not far away. "Castle," she says, after he untangles her seat belt. "Are you coming home with me?"

"No, I'm dropping you off at your place and then going to get Alexis, remember?" Alexis, who at that very moment is actually at home, probably in her PJs, finishing her homework. Maybe she's already finished, and has gone to bed. It's a school night. She never stays up late during the week unless she's studying for an exam.

Tilting over as much as she can with the restraint of the seat belt, Beckett says, as if confiding in him some top-secret piece of information, "We're wearing our clothes."

"That's true. We are." Aren't they there yet? He needs to get her home.

"Why?" Now she's reaching over and trying to unbutton his jacket.

He gently removes her hand and puts it down on the seat. "Well, because we're in a cab."

"You said you were going to take me in the cab," she whines, poking him unsteadily in the middle of his chest. Her voice drops to a solemn whisper. "I've never had sex in a cab. Have you? This would be my first time."

He wishes that he'd been a Boy Scout so that he could silently repeat the Scout promise. Doesn't it say something about having clean thoughts? HOW FAR AWAY CAN HER APARTMENT BE? Oh, here it is. Finally. The cab has stopped in front of her building. He gives the driver a twenty, asks him to wait, and not completely smoothly gets Beckett out and to the front door. "Please, allow me," he says, taking her keys to let them in, then steering her to the elevator.

"Whoopsie," she says, when she stumbles slightly as she enters her apartment.

He flicks on the light that's just inside the door. "Here you are. Safe at home. Now go to bed and I'll see you at work."

"You don't want to stay?" She looks crushed, and sounds as if she's about to cry. Her eyes are as liquid as his knees feel.

He has to leave. This instant. Does he want to stay? Does he want to stay? Does the sun rise in the east? Does Christmas come once a year? Are her initials KHB? Is chocolate part of the food pyramid? "Not that that isn't a lovely invitation," he says chirpily, which is better than the squeak that nearly slipped out of his mouth, "but I have to go pick up Alexis. Night, Beckett." He can't remember having exited a room that fast, ever, even the time he accidentally set the chemistry lab on fire in high school. The elevator is still there, but he takes the stairs, running as fast as he can to the cab, which is still at the curb.

"I should get sainthood for this," he says after settling into the back seat.

"What's that?" the driver asks, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

"Nothing. Nothing. Thank you for waiting."

Ten minutes later, as he lets himself into the loft, he thinks that if he hadn't already had so much to drink he'd go straight to his office and pour himself a strong one. Instead, seeing the light on in his daughter's room, he walks upstairs and pokes his head in. "Hi, sweetheart."

"Hi, Dad," she says, smiling up at him from her nest of a quilt. She's reading in bed. "Did you have a nice time?"

A nice time? It's a good thing his daughter can't read his mind. "I did, thanks. We just had drinks to celebrate ending a complicated case." He comes into the room, kisses her on top of her head, takes the book from her hand, and puts it on her nightstand. "I'm going to sleep now, and so should you."

"Right. Night, Dad."

"Night, Alexis. Sleep tight."

"You, too."

Sleep tight. He can hardly breathe. He shuts her door, rolls his shoulders, and goes back down to his own room. "Maybe I should take a shower," he says as he strips to his shorts. "Wash away those impure thoughts about Beckett." He looks in the mirror as he grabs his toothpaste and bares his teeth. "Nah, I'd rather take them to bed with me."

According to the watch that is mysteriously on her wrist–she never wears her watch to bed–it's not quite six a.m. There's a noise to her right that's so loud she puts her hand to her forehead to make sure that it hasn't split in two. She cracks open one eye. Oh. It's her alarm. What the–? Who the hell put it on that decibel level? She punches the off button on the screen but the noise continues. With a certain amount of savagery, she turns the phone off and rolls onto her side. There's obviously something wrong with her eyesight. She's lying in what appears to be her bedroom except that she can tell that she's on a ship that's pitching around in some violent and unseeable sea. Unseeable sailors are clanging unseeable large metal objects against the deck with such force that the vibrations are entering her body at her feet and then getting trapped in her head.

If she gets out of the bed/ship, maybe the pitching will stop. She rolls onto her side and stands up. Oh, God. Bad idea. Terrible idea. She grabs for the headboard to keep herself from falling over. With this sea all around her, why is she so thirsty? She's dying of thirst. Someone will find her desiccated corpse in here if she doesn't hydrate right now. Maybe she can crawl to the bathroom, if the ship has one. She manages to walk, barely, to what looks like her bathroom. Please let it not be a mirage. She's so thirsty. She's in the ocean. "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." That's her. That's some old poem. What poem is it? She can't remember. It hurst to think. Oh, here's the sink and a glass. She fills it and drains it in almost one gulp. Who wrote that poem? She should ask Castle, he'd know.

Castle? Castle? Holy shit. She looks at herself in the mirror. Not a good sight. Castle. Oh, God, she had a drink with Castle last night. Maybe more than one drink? People tease her about her hollow leg, being able to drink anyone under the table, but now she's under the table, all by herself. She has a hangover, that's what. A cruise-ship-size hangover–not one of those little fifty-passenger river boats, but the kind with twenty decks and dozens of staff in Disney character costumes.

She takes another look in the mirror and belatedly discovers that she never got undressed. She looks down: this is what she wore to work yesterday. Ugh. Shower. She needs a shower. And coffee. If only the floor weren't buckling under her feet. If only those unseen sailors hadn't now decided to use her head as a pinball machine. She grips the side of the sink. Which first, shower or coffee? Shower. Not sure if she can stand up that long. She sits on the floor and turns on the faucets to fill her tub. Still on the floor, she takes off her clothes, then pushes herself up and gingerly steps into the hot water. It feels good. The steam is filling the room, but strangely it's also clearing her mind a little. Drinks with Castle. She vaguely remembers a bar, lounge, something she'd never go to on her NYPD salary. When she gets to work–yes, it's a work day, she'd better get moving, oh, God. When she gets to work she'll ask the boys. They must have been with her and Castle? No, she's pretty sure they weren't. And how had she gotten home? She had to have been way too drunk to drive. Maybe Castle drove her home? But wouldn't he have been matching her drink for drink? She slides under the water. Her hair is floating around her face like seaweed. She'd better get out. Get going.

Wrapped in a towel, she creeps to the kitchen, starts the coffee, and goes back to her bedroom to get dressed. By the time she's done, so is the coffee, and she carries the mug to the bathroom so she can get caffeinated while she dries her hair. Dear God, the thing is noisy. There must be something wrong with it. She clenches her teeth while she blasts warm air onto her head. She can't tolerate the sound, and she's late, so she dries her hair just enough so that she can put it in a pony tail. Let it dry naturally that way. No one will notice.

In her state she won't be able to abide the subway, and there are no cabs now that rush hour is underway. She'll walk. It's the middle of October and it's chilly; the air will do her good. She texts Espo, tells him she's running a little late. But she's gone only three blocks when a cab stops right in front of her and a dapper elderly man gets out. "Are you in need of a taxi?" he asks, very politely.

"Oh, yes. Thank you. You've saved my life."

"It's a rare pleasure to be able to assist a damsel in distress at my age. I'm eighty-nine." He holds the car door open until she slides in. "May you have a day that's as beautiful as you." He bows slightly and walks towards the doctor's office behind her.

Wow, she thinks as she struggles to fasten the wonky seat belt. You don't see manners like that any more. She gives the driver the address of the precinct and notices his license, which is mounted right in front of her. His first name is Rick. She's in a cab with Rick. Was she in a cab with Rick last night? Rick Castle? Had he brought her home? If so, he was as gentlemanly as the fellow who just wished her a beautiful day. Maybe if, when, she has another coffee her mind will be less fuzzy. Maybe she'll be able to remember last night. And what had they talked about, anyway? They must have been out for hours if she has a hangover the size of the Staten Island ferry. It feels more like that than a cruise ship now. Very gritty, and no staff to bring you coffee in a nice cup and saucer.

When they get to the precinct she has a little trouble undoing her seat belt. She is suddenly awash in a memory of a seat belt in a cab. Of Castle helping her with it. And then? Then? Oh, fuck, she couldn't have done that. Not that. Surely not that. Had she propositioned him? She's pretty, hideously sure she had. And he had turned her down. Well, that's a first. A double first. She'd said let's and he'd said let's not. He had been even more of a gentleman than she'd thought, even though he must have been as drunk as she. A natural, flaming blush burns through her carefully applied powder one. If the cab hadn't already pulled away she'd have asked the man to drive her to the river and throw her in, preferably with a cinder block chained to her ankle. She can't look Castle in the face. Maybe he won't come in today. There's a happy thought. If he feels half as awful as she, he won't show up for at least 24 hours. Okay, okay, good. She has a bit of breathing room and she'll think of something before tomorrow. Like a vacation. That's it. She'll ask the Captain this morning for some time off, and by lunchtime she'll have a ticket to the Azores or Siberia, anywhere far, far, far away.

"Hi, Beckett," Ryan says as she approaches her desk.

"Morning."

"You okay?" Espo asks after he strolls over.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" Is it that obvious?

"'cause you're never late, that's why."

"Five minutes," she says irritably, tapping the face of her watch. "I was five minutes late."

"That plus you look like you could use the hair of the dog, don't mind my sayin'. You have a big night out?"

"No," she says too quickly. "Just a drink after work."

"Fine. But I'd put a little Irish in my coffee if I were you."

"Thanks for the unsolicited advice, Espo. Now I have some paperwork to do, and so do you." She drops her purse into her desk drawer, where it lands with a thunk that makes her wince. Maybe Espo was right about the hair of the dog. She could at least have some more coffee. She's no sooner completed that thought than a booming baritone fills her ears.

"Morning, all," Castle says. "I brought pumpkin muffins–tis the season–which I will put in the break room as soon as I've handed over the requisite latte to our leader."

She can't look up, she cannot. Noooooo. But there's his hand, just above the surface of her desk, and it's holding a familiar paper cup. Just let go, please. Please let go. Please. He answers her unvoiced prayer and sets down the cup. She grabs it, puts it to her lips, and takes a sip. Then another, and another, but she can't stay silent forever. "Thanks, Castle." Finally.

"You're welcome."

He's smiling, sweet smiling, not smart-ass smiling, or gloating smiling.

"Um, to what do we owe the honor? You usually give us a wide berth on paperwork days."

"Well, I needed some air. And the bakery is on the way from my place to here so I thought, why not? And of course, there could be a homicide any moment."

"You're such an optimist."

"I live in hope, Beckett." I do live in hope, he thinks. I really do. "Maybe I should visit Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of our forty-second president. Not to move there. Too far a commute from here. But did you know there's a Hope, New York?"

"I do now. Unless you made it up."

"Nope. Small town in Hamilton County. North of Albany. Want to go on a road trip with me?"

"What I really want is to drink this coffee." It all comes so easy, this whatever it is, but her stomach is churning.

"Fine. I'll leave you to that and put these sensational muffins"–he holds up the wax-paper bag–"in the break room. Would you like one?"

"No. No, thanks. Maybe later." The suggestion of food is almost enough to send her to the ladies room.

The morning wears on, and Castle is still here. Not in his chair next to her desk, but talking to the boys, telling some joke to LT. Guilt is beginning to consume her. She's a coward. Her mother would be ashamed of her. "Hey guys," she says shortly before noon, swiveling in her chair. "It's lunchtime. I'm going to get Chinese. Want some?"

"You buying?" Ryan asks hopefully.

"Yup. My treat."

"Then I'm in."

"Me, too," Espo says.

"How about you Castle?"

"Definitely."

"Want to come with me? Do the heavy lifting?" The twin dread of smelling Chinese food, which is normally her favorite, and speaking to Castle about last night is almost too much. She clenches her jaw and tries on a smile.

"I've been working out. You should see my six-pack abs. Bet I can carry a bag of moo shu pork, General Tso's chicken, two orders of sesame noodles, and dumplings without breaking a sweat."

He shouldn't have said anything about his abs, because now she's imagining them. And other things. And she's sober. "Glad to hear that you're a man of steel, Castle," she says, and collects her purse.

They're halfway to the Chinese restaurant when she blurts, "Do you mind if we duck in here for a minute?"

"Here?" He looks confused. "McDonald's? You want fries with your sesame noodles?"

"Oh, God, please don't mention food."

"Isn't that why we're out here? To get food?"

"C'mon," she says, heading into the fast-food joint. "There's a little booth in the back that's always empty."

"How do you know?" He looks around as if they've landed on Mars.

"Because before you started bringing me coffee I used to come in here really early before work. I'd sit back there and drink coffee and read the paper."

"Should I get us some coffee? I don't think plunk ourselves down without buying something."

"Sure, go ahead. I'll go save the table."

She's a wreck, but she has to get this off her chest. Why is it taking so long? Oh. Lunch crowd. Of course. She tries not to inhale the smell of deep-fat frying.

"Here you go," he says, pushing a cup across the table to her. "Sorry they don't have vanilla."

"Castle?" She points to a little bag in his right hand. "What is that?"

"This? Apple turnover or something. I don't like Chinese desserts. Want a bite?"

Trying not to shudder, she replies, "No, but thank you. Just coffee for me."

He takes a bite. "Hmm. Not bad."

"Why are you having that now? Isn't it dessert?"

"It's fruit. Sort of. I'll count it as an appetizer." He takes another bite.

"How can you eat?"

"What?"

"Don't you have a hangover?" Not what she'd planned to say, not at all. She'd better hurry and not let him get a word in. "I have a terrible hangover, Castle. That's why we're in here."

"Sorry, what?"

"I wanted to talk to you, but not in the precinct. I woke up this morning with the worst hangover of my life. I have almost no memory of last night, although I eventually recalled a very nice bar where you and I had drinks. Apparently, at least in my case, a boatload of drinks. But I couldn't figure out how I got home. I slept in my clothes, didn't even take off my watch, so basically I think I passed out. Anyway, I was feeling so awful I was afraid I wouldn't die, and I couldn't face the subway. So I started to walk to work and then this wonderful old man got out of a cab and that reminded me of you."

"Geez, way to compliment a guy, Beckett. I'm not that old. Still in my prime."

"No, no." She accidentally puts her hand on his wrist. It's so warm. And soft. "No, it was that he was so polite, and in a cab, and I got in and then I had this memory of you and me in a cab."

He stops eating his apple turnover. Turnover being a better descriptor of what his brain is doing. And maybe his stomach, all of a sudden. "Oh."

She covers her face with her hands, shakes her head, and puts her hands back on the table. "I don't know what we talked about all night. That might be lost forever in the mists of whatever the hell I was drinking."

"Glenlivet."

"What?"

"That's what you were drinking," he says, so softly that she can hardly hear him. "Glenlivet. Distilled in Moray, Scotland, which I'm sure has plenty of mist."

"Oh. And you don't have a hangover? What were you drinking, Shirley Temples?"

"Nope, Glenlivet. Like you. But I also ate a lot and you ate nothing. And I'm heavier than you. My hangover is tolerable."

She's undoing the rolled-paper rim on her cup. "Anyway. Oh, God, this is so embarrassing."

"Nothing to be embarrassed about."

"You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"All right."

"So I did remember this, while I was in the cab. I, uh. I kind of propositioned you."

The tiny bit of apple that's in his mouth shoots across the room and lands on the floor five feet away.

"Something about having sex in the cab. There. I said it. A lot of guys, most guys, would have taken advantage of that and you didn't. That's why the old guy who was so polite made me think of you. You were a total gentleman. I have no idea what got into me." Yes you do you, you cowardly liar, she thinks.

"All that got into you was really good single malt, Beckett. Can't say I didn't love being propositioned, but no. That was booze talking. And I don't answer to that."

"I'm really sorry."

"What for?"

"You know what for."

"Forget it, Beckett. I will."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe not right away."

For the first time today, she laughs. "Thanks. And thanks for helping me not die of mortification."

"My mortifying moments are Olympian next to yours."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So." She picks at the paper rim some more. If she keeps this up, the cup will disintegrate. "Guess we had a nice evening. Sorry I have no idea what we talked about."

"Just this and that, Beckett. Shop talk. Movies. The usual." The usual if you overlook her giving up her fanfic identity. Is it good or bad that she doesn't remember? He's trying not to be disappointed. Broken-hearted, even. And then he remembers what he told himself last night. She's not ready for him to know, but she knows who he is. And he'll just wait for the day when she can tell him. Well, what do you know. Him waiting. Not telling her. Not pushing her. Not dropping a hint. That's a first. And she's worth it.

"You okay, Castle?"

"Me? Fine."

"You look a little, I dunno. Something."

"Might be this turnover," he says, scrunching up his nose. "I think I'd rather have moo shu." He drops the remains of the confection into his empty cup. "What do you say we go get that?"

"Yes. I say yes."

On their way out she bumps her shoulder against his. "Thanks, Castle. I think there's a lot more to thank you for that you're not telling."

"Maybe," he says, with the biggest grin she's ever seen. "Maybe."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you, everyone, for all your encouraging words.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She'd coped with another Christmas season, gotten through another anniversary of her mother's death. The worst of the winter is behind her, and it's only the second week of January. It's dark and damp and cold, but she's cheerful–happy, even–as she unlocks her front door and sheds her coat, scarf, and boots. 2011 might be a good year, it really might.

Today had been a good day. They'd arrested the magician's killer and locked the case up so tight that no amount of magic would get him out. Magic. There's something magical in the fact that she and Castle turn out to share a childhood passion for the same magic store. "Prestidigitation," she whispers. She can picture Castle as a boy, eyes wide, trying out all kinds of sleight of hand. The beam when he got it right, the exultant "Ta da!" and a tip of his top hat. She's sure that he had a top hat, probably even a cape. Magicians have to have good hands, and he has beautiful hands. She shouldn't be thinking about them, she should be thinking about Josh's. A surgeon's hands, a lifesaver's hands. Except Castle has literally saved her life, and figuratively, too. He's fun. He's funny. And even though he can drive her to distraction–and he does–he has saved her over and over again by making her laugh. She's laughed more in the last year than in the previous ten.

Josh is a good man, and he does important work, but he does not make her laugh.

The primary source of her cheerfulness tonight, though she knows that it shouldn't be, is Castle's break up with Gina. She'd tried hard not to root for it, but in the most secret corner of her heart, she had been. Had she seen it coming? Of course. She's not a detective for nothing. Still, it had taken her by surprise when it happened. In winter the air in the precinct is very dry, and shortly before the end of her shift she'd gone to the vending machine to get a bottle of water. That's when she'd overheard him on the phone with Gina. "No. No, what I'm saying is–it's over."

She hadn't said anything to him, but she knows that he knows that she knows. At quitting time he'd asked if she were on her way to meet Doctor Motorcycle Boy and she'd said no, that Josh was on shift. And at that instant she'd felt as if she'd been sprinkled with magic dust or hit by lightning–shazam!–because right on the spot, sensing the pain that his vague smile could not keep hidden from her, she'd said, "I was going to see if I could catch the comfort food truck. You want to come?" She'd had no such plan until she'd looked at him. He'd needed comfort; this she could do.

They'd tried all of it: meatloaf, mac and cheese, chicken and dumplings, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, biscuits, Mississippi mud pie. At the end, when they'd been drinking hot chocolate so rich that it required a spoon, she'd made him laugh by telling him dopey jokes, and she's still blown away by how he'd reacted. He'd laughed with his face and his whole body. He'd toppled over sideways in the chair, still laughing. That's a first, she thinks, as she turns out the lamp on her nightstand and burrows under her duvet. She'd made him laugh so hard that he'd forgotten how miserable he'd just been. He'd done that for her so often. It's good to be able, at last, to pay back the favor.

She falls asleep with the sound of his laughter in her ears, even though the room is silent, and she's the only person there.

Castle is wide awake in bed, with his fingers laced underneath his head. He should be unhappy, shouldn't he? He's fucked up another relationship. Scratch that. He's fucked up the same relationship for the third time. He's a little unhappy, but what he really is is rueful: if he hadn't gotten back together with Gina, maybe Beckett wouldn't have taken up with Motorcycle Boy. Still, when they'd gotten into the elevator together this evening, she'd smiled, pulled a paper bouquet out of her sleeve, and given it to him. It had been magical, that gesture, and it had been a first. No woman has ever given him flowers, even if these were paper ones. Paper ones could be better, anyway: they last. When he'd gotten home he'd put them in a glass vase on his desk, next to his little Rhode Island HOPE flag.

He looks at the ceiling and starts to laugh, recalling how Beckett had knocked him out with a trio of knock-knock jokes. It had all started when he'd spilled some cream of spinach on the table and wanted to get some more.

"Know what this reminds me of?" she'd said.

"What?"

"The spinach."

"Enlighten me, Beckett."

"Knock-knock."

Yes, she'd told him knock-knock jokes. It had stunned him then, and revisiting it does, too.

"Who's there?"

"Amos," she'd said solemnly.

"Amos who?" he'd dutifully replied.

"A mosquito bit me!"

It had made him chuckle, but seeing her eyes sparkling and her nose crinkling had almost done him in. "No mosquitoes around here, Beckett. It's snowing."

"Shhh." She'd put her hand out to silence him. "Knock-knock."

"Again?"

"Just answer, Castle."

"Geez, bossy. Okay. Who's there?"

"Andy," she'd said, just as seriously as after the first joke.

"Andy who?"

"And he bit me again!"

He'd laughed even harder, so hard he was afraid the macaroni might come right back up his throat. He'd been spared that indignity, but oh, man, he'd laughed. And then she'd said, "Wait! One more," and snorted before she'd started up again.

"Knock-knock."

Oh, he hadn't wanted this to end. "Whoooooo's there?"

"Spinach!"

"Spinach who?"

" 's been itchin' me ever since."

He'd cracked up, and she'd giggled. He'd laughed so much and for so long that his entire body hurt, and the whole time he'd kept stealing looks at her, her face open and delighted and magical. " 's been itchin' me ever since," he repeats to himself. She's been itchin' him since the first time he laid eyes on her, at his rooftop book party in 2009, but the itch is different now.

He turns out the light. The only thing he can see in the pitch-dark room is her face, a face that had seemed so happy to have made him laugh. He still sees it as he falls asleep.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Two weeks ago she'd thought that 2011 would be a good year, and it had seemed that way, it really had. When Castle broke up with Gina it forced her to rethink her relationship with Josh. She likes him, and admires his dedication to medicine. Sometimes (but not always) he can engage her intellectually; sometimes (but not always) he can engage her sexually. She knows that's not nearly enough, but she stays with him. She's virtually certain that Castle is more than enough, but she's a wreck, and he's got a bad track record with long-term relationships. The attraction is almost irresistible, and she suspects–hopes–that one day she won't resist. She won't resist any longer because she'll finally be strong enough, odd as that sounds. But they both need to make some emotional changes first and she's wary of approaching Castle when he's only just called things off with Gina. For now she would enjoy what they have, and it's a lot. It's good.

Until today happened and the good year turned bad.

The world changes in a second. She's understood that for a very long time, but she'd thought that she was prepared for the next knockdown. She'd made herself tough; she can take just about anything, can deal with it. But she'd been wrong: nothing had prepared her for today. Nothing. No history or training, no mental fortitude, because today hadn't been a knockdown, it had been a knock out. A death blow. John Raglan, lead investigator on her mother's case, had called and asked her to meet him in a coffee shop. He'd been on the verge of spilling everything to her when a sniper had taken him out, right in front of her and Castle. "I made a bad mistake, and that started the dominoes falling," he'd said in the instant before the bullet pierced the window next to the booth where they'd been sitting. "And one of them was your mom." Raglan, that inexcusable excuse for a detective, had held the key to her mother's murder, and now he's gone. Late this evening, after she'd filled out paperwork on the shooting, Captain Montgomery had told her to home, and that's where she is.

Her phone is on mute. She'd spent at least half an hour in the tub, but she hadn't been able to get warm, no matter how much hot water she'd kept adding. She couldn't get clean, either. She'd felt like Lady Macbeth, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing to get off Raglan's blood that had seeped through her turtleneck and onto her skin. She's wrapped up in three layers now, wearing thick socks under her slippers, and drinking scalding coffee, and she's still cold. Raglan's murder is only half responsible for her state: the other is Castle. The expression on his face when he'd said of the blood that had spattered him, "I think I got it all off my hands." And worse, his expression when he'd said, "When I saw the blood on your shirt, I thought you'd been shot." He'd been terrified. Not for himself, but for her. He'd looked terrified and broken-hearted at the prospect of her being shot.

She can't have that on her conscience. Of course she could get shot in the line of duty, there's nothing she can do about that except be as careful as possible. But she can keep him away from her mother's case. Must keep him away. Because if _he_ gets shot while investigating that? That she will not survive. And yet she wants him with her, too. Every bit of it wants that. So which will it be? The fact is, if she asks him to back off he'll find a way around it. That's his nature. And an additional fact is, he's already been with her on her mother's case, is with her. He'd found the forensic pathologist who'd cracked the case open; he'd paid a hundred grand to try to track her mother's killer, and lost it without a regret. He'd refused to let her pay it back. She picks up her mug, takes a sip, and shudders. The coffee's cold now. She stands up, takes it to the sink, and pours it down the drain. She's never been this torn. She sighs and goes to brush her teeth before trying to sleep. Her conscience is paralyzed, but so be it. She won't ask Castle to stay away. They've got Raglan's murder to crack, and then her mother's.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Castle is sitting alone in his office in the middle of the night. They'd put the Raglan homicide to bed a few hours ago, and he's going over the what happened between the time he and Beckett met Raglan for coffee, and earlier tonight, when they'd arrested Hal Lockwood for his murder. He feels as though he has whiplash. He thought she was shot; she wasn't shot. She didn't want him on the case, she did want him on the case. Montgomery threw them off, they worked their way back on. They closed it but they didn't close it. They locked up Lockwood, or whoever he really is, for Raglan's murder, but they know he's the vital link and he's not talking. That should be depressing, and it is, but they'd made inroads in The Case, Capital T, capital C–her mother's case–and that's what matters most, that's what helps make up for the fact that that bastard Raglan had never told them what he knew.

And another thing, something that fills his heart. When he'd gone to see her at her apartment after Montgomery had kicked them to the curb, she'd stunned him by showing him the tiny murder board of her mother's case that she created and keeps hidden inside her living room shutters.

"I sometimes forget that you live with this every day," he'd said, even now embarrassed at the admission. "Josh know about this?"

"No."

No? She hadn't shared this with her boyfriend but she was sharing it with him? "When did you start?"

"Over the summer, when you were in the Hamptons."

The guilt that had rushed through him then had been physically painful. "While you were in the Hamptons." Right, while he was in the Hamptons and she was retreating deeper and deeper into herself and writing a fan fiction story so sad that it nearly cleaved him in two. But he'd staved off the guilt so that he could talk about her mother's case. Beckett had trusted him. She'd let him in, and they're the only two people on earth who know about this, her private investigation, what she's found.

It's only now that he's let himself take another step, to reflect on what happened several hours ago. Not about his beating the bejeezus out of Lockwood, atisfying as that had been. No, what he's allowing himself to relive is that kiss. That staged, fake kiss to fool a security guard, right before they'd nailed Lockwood. He puts his hand up to his mouth. It had happened five hours ago, but his lips are still hot. There's nothing fake about what he feels, nothing fake about how she'd felt against him, or about how'd he felt against her.

It hadn't been one kiss, but two. The first one? Okay, staged. Staged but not inauthentic. He'd kissed her with everything he had–at least, everything that was acceptable in public–and it was the most meaningful kiss of his life. Until the second kiss, the one that had happened a few seconds after they'd broken apart and Beckett had launched herself at him. That's a new gold standard for a kiss, at least for him, and he's kissed a lot of women. Lots and lots of women. Calling it electrifying seems inadequate, but he's still so bedazzled that he can't come up with anything else. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, obviously. That's okay for now. He doesn't need to talk about it when he can feel and taste it.

He should go to bed. It's almost 3:30. Hard to sleep, though. Really hard. He turns on his laptop and reads a couple of news stories. He finds a review of a play that sounds like something his mother and his daughter would enjoy, and makes a note to buy tickets as soon as he's checked their calendars. He's in the middle of an analysis of the latest Ferrari–he's thinking about upgrading–when he hears eight notes. Eight notes that had gotten him through last summer. Eight notes that he hasn't heard since the end of August. Eight notes that he'd chosen as an alert when SoNotNikki79 posted on the fan fiction site: the first eight notes of the song "I've Never Been in Love Before."

Even after all these months, he's never logged out of the email account that he'd set up for his FF correspondence. He clicks on it immediately. He can't believe it. He has to believe it. It's right there: the announcement of a new chapter of Snick's story "Bad Good Night," posted one minute ago, and marked Complete.

 **A/N** My mother told me those knock-knock jokes when I was about seven, and they remain my favorites.


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter goes into M territory for a while. If you'd like to skip that section, please stop reading at _"She gives him a soft jab with her heel"_ and begin again at _"It's been five months."_

Of all the warnings and pieces of advice that her mother had given her, the one that haunts her most is "Finish what you start." In fifth grade she'd begged to have clarinet lessons–not the wisest choice for a kid with buck teeth–and she'd quit before the school year ended. Same thing with knitting class, though she did almost complete a useless scarf that had as many dropped stitches as properly linked ones. Twenty years later she still reddens with shame at the projects she'd left undone.

She'd abandoned her fan fiction story months five ago. With the notable exception of Castle, a.k.a. feelingtheheat, she's probably the only person who even remembers it. He's never mentioned it, of course, since he doesn't know that she's the author of "Bad Good Night," or even that she reads fan fiction, but she'd bet her life savings that he not only remembers it but could recite large and embarrassing sections of it.

At odd and unexpected moments, often when she's having trouble sleeping, her story slithers out from under a mental rock and taunts her. "Finish what you start," it hisses. "Finish me. Finish me."

Today is the day–or night, since it's already eleven o'clock–that she'll finally put the story to rest. She doesn't need a Freudian analyst to understand what has pushed her to it: they'd caught Lockwood, the man who'd been hired to kill Raglan. It's a huge breakthrough. He's not talking now, but he will. She'll make sure that other inmates pay calls on him; she'll pay calls on him, too, every week. She'll wear the son of the bitch down, mercilessly, and one day he'll cave.

She doesn't need to look to Freud to realize that there's an equal if not greater impetus for finishing her story: Castle. Castle had saved her life–again–by getting the drop on Lockwood just before he'd squeezed the trigger, releasing the bullet that would have killed her.

She doesn't need to commune with Freud to recognize that there's something else that's driving her to write, something that lasted only a few seconds. Something evanescent, except even now she can feel it in every part of her body, and her soul. It had reached her soul almost as quickly as it reached the tangible parts of her. It was the kiss, a phony kiss to divert a security guard. A phony kiss that was utterly unphony. Maybe phony in its approach, but the instant their lips made contact, it was very, very real. She touches the tip of her tongue to her lower lip: she can still taste him. A ribbon of hard-to-ignore warmth runs through her as she opens her laptop and starts to type.

When she checks "complete" in the status box and submits the chapter, she's startled to see that it's almost four in the morning. Except for the short break that she'd taken to put on a heavy sweater and socks and to make a cup of hot chocolate–the antiquated heating system in her building is no match for the sub-freezing temperature and the biting wind outside–she'd written nonstop for nearly five hours. She's glad to have finished, and the ending feels right. Just as she's getting into bed she remembers something that she wrote to feelingtheheat last summer, before she knew that he was Castle. It was part of her reply to his review, the first time she PMed him. _I agree that there's fault on both sides, but unlike you I think they're two complicated people who just don't know how to be together._

But they do now, in her story. Nikki and Rook are still complicated, but they know how to be together. She's done. She wonders if Castle will read it, wonders if he's looked at fan fic at all since she left it so abruptly? Probably not. Doesn't matter. Really, it doesn't matter? She's not staying up to wait for his reply, the way she had so often in the summer? No. She doesn't need to; she feels secure about how he feels about her. Whoa, that's a first, she thinks. She gets under the covers and falls into a dreamless sleep.

Castle is wide awake, still sitting in his office, where he just finished the last chapter of "Bad Good Night" for the second time. His first reading was breakneck; the second was deliberate. How is he supposed to sleep after reading this? It's sweet. It's unexpected. And it's incredibly sexy. Nikki has decided that she and Rook can make a go of it, and that she's rock-bottom miserable without him. She ferrets out from someone at _First Press_ that Rook has left Tajikistan and is living in a tiny apartment in Florence; he has a six-month leave to work on a book. Getting the address requires no detective work because she knows precisely where he is. He'd told her about the place ages ago; it's essentially a garret and belongs to a friend who is almost always on the road. Luckily she has a lot of vacation time coming–"sounds familiar," Castle mumbles–so she books an open-ended ticket, packs a few things in a carry-on, grabs her passport, and goes.

He starts reading the next passage for the third time.

 _At 10:45 her flight lands at Amerigo Vespucci airport–she smiles as she remembers that because of his name the Florentine explorer was her favorite when she was in elementary school. By the time the taxi deposits her outside the small building near the center of the city it's almost midnight local time, and she's on high alert. Opening the front door presents no challenge since she's traveling with a full set of lock picks, and she walks up the steep, worn stairs to the top floor. Rook sleeps so soundly that she doesn't worry about waking him when she comes into the apartment._

 _In the dark, Nikki sets her bag on the floor in the corner, takes off her clothes and hangs them over the back of a chair, tiptoes to his bed, and slips in next to him. There's just enough ambient light so that she can see his profile. As softly as possible, she runs the tips of her fingers over his hair. It's very short, almost bristly. She's never seen him like that; she imagines it makes him very boyish. Lying on her side behind him, but not quite touching him, she inhales. He must have taken a shower before he'd gone to sleep because there's a familiar trace of his lime basil and mandarin soap on his skin; she loves that smell. It makes her feel drunk and it does wild things to her hormones._

Castle jumps at the description of the soap. Why hadn't he noticed it before? Because he'd been reading quickly and had been distracted and seduced by "does wild things to her hormones," that's why. It hadn't leapt out at him during his second, slower reading, either, for the same reason. There's no way that "lime basil and mandarin" just floated into Beckett's mind like a bubble from the bath. She described the soap that _he_ uses. He chews on that for a moment and makes an educated guess. She'd stayed in the loft a year ago. She must have found it then, except that there's different soap in the guest bath that she used. Oh, wait. Oh, this is a good sign, a really excellent sign: she must have liked–still likes, if she used this in her fan fic–the way he smells. She must have sneaked into his bathroom sometime when she'd been staying on Broome Street and discovered what kind of soap he has. Wow, this is beyond anything he could have hoped. She likes the way he smells! Very important. Ultra important. Is there a chance that the way his bare skin smells would do wild things to Beckett's hormones, too?

He returns to the story.

 _It's impossible to keep her distance now. She's naked, and he's wearing nothing but boxers. She presses herself along his spine, her breasts against his shoulder blades, her kneecaps tucked into the back of his knees, her shins against his calves. He feels much thinner. He's all sinew and muscle, and it's an enormous turn-on, this hard body. He stirs a little, and she reaches around to put one hand across his chest while she kisses the back of his neck._

 _He moves like a wild creature, some combination of hunter and hunted, and he rolls over and pins her on her back so fast that he knocks most of the breath out of her. "Nikki? What the fuck?"_

 _His face is so close to hers that she can hardly see it. "I missed you," she whispers._

 _"_ _You scared the pants off me."_

 _"_ _You're not wearing any pants," she says, tugging on the waistband. "Unless you call these things I'm about to tear off you pants."_

 _He grabs her hand to stop her. "How did you know that I was here?"_

 _"_ _You sound angry. Are you angry? I asked David, at the paper."_

 _"_ _He told you?"_

 _"_ _Just that you were in Florence, on leave. I remembered where this place was."_

 _"_ _Why are you here?"_

 _"_ _Do you wish I weren't?"_

 _"_ _Just tell me why you're here, Nikki."_

 _"_ _Why?" She knows her eyes are filling up, and she hopes that he can't tell. "Because one more day without you makes no sense. Because when you left the world collapsed. Because no one else makes me laugh. Because every part of me missed you. Because every part of me hurt."_

 _He's quiet for a long time, and when he finally speaks the hard edge of his voice is soft. "Every part?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _"_ _Even your eyelashes?"_

 _"_ _Definitely my eyelashes. Excruciating."_

 _"_ _And your brain? What about that?"_

 _"_ _Agony." She pulls her right leg out from under him and wraps it around his ass. His taut, hard ass. She gives him a soft jab with her heel._

Without even thinking about it, Castle pats his butt. Could be a little firmer. He should do something about it. If Nikki likes that, surely Beckett does. No more doughnuts. He's swearing off doughnuts.

 _"_ _What about this?" Rook asks, ducking his head and sucking so hard on her left breast that she almost levitates._

 _"_ _Yes, yes. More. Harder. Do that again."_

 _He puts his head up and smiles. "You little masochist."_

 _"_ _Damn right. Do it again." He does, again and again and again, and when his tongue isn't circling one of her nipples it's deep in her mouth. The actual kiss is even better than the memory of his kiss, which is saying more than a lot. And suddenly he and his magnificent tongue slide all the way down to where she's been aching for him since she got in the bed. Possibly even in the taxi. Possibly even in the plane. The tip of his tongue darts and probes and she can no longer think coherently, and then he presses her down hard with the palm of one hand. He flattens his tongue, and it scoops and caresses; he curls it and it teases and tickles, and then he licks and scoops and licks so erotically that she's gone, coming so hard and fast that her pubic bone hits his chin. She might have_ _bruised him._

 _Her heart is still beating fast when he moves back up to look her in the eye and says, "God, I love it when you squirt."_

 _"_ _You love it because you know you're the only man who's ever made me do that, you cocky bastard. And speaking of cocky, if you're not inside me in the next minute, I'll kill you."_

 _"_ _Lot less than a minute," he says, as he enters her. "You feel incredible, Nik. You're so tight."_

 _"_ _It's been five months."_

 _"_ _Don't need to remind me."_

 _"_ _And eighteen days."_

 _"_ _You were counting, too?"_

 _"_ _Yeah," she says, digging her fingernails into his skin that miraculously still smells of lime basil and mandarin._

Castle doesn't read the rest. It's too much right now, and absolutely vivid in his mind anyway, since this is his third time through the chapter. That's a first, he thinks as he stops reading. His first ever case of voluntary reading interruptus, the more astonishing since it's sexual. And written by Beckett. He's about to shut down his laptop when he realizes that he hasn't written a review. He wants to write reams, but instead leaves a short but glowing paragraph, careful as ever to write in a style not at all his own. As soon as he's posted it, he sends her a PM.

 _Dear Snick,_

 _I'm thrilled that you finished your story and that it's such a happy conclusion. I hope that that's a reflection of your own state of mind._

 _Your fan,_

 _FTH_

 _P. S. That was one hell of a scene. I felt like I was in the bed with them._

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

More than two hours after he sent his PM to Beckett/Snick his head is still spinning. He's desperate to see her. Will she be at all different than she was yesterday, before she wrote the final chapter of her story? Will she have a new-found calm? Will she look at him more openly? He knows her tells by now; if he sees her, will he able to spot what's changed, even though she'll pretend that nothing has?

Okay, technically she isn't Nikki. But she poured herself into Nikki in "Bad Good Night," so there's more of Nikki in her own story than there is in his books, and surely she's more like Nikki now than she was before she started writing fan fic, right? Which means that what Nikki feels for Rook resembles what she feels for him, Castle, unexpressed as it may be? Gaahhhh! His brain hurts. He needs to sleep, but he's too wired.

There's no need for him to go to the precinct today since they've closed the case and paperwork is anathema to him. If he shows up she'll suspect something. Wait, no, she won't. Why should she? She has no idea that he's reading her story and even more no idea–that's an impossible construct, but he doesn't care–that he knows that she's SoNotNikki79. Still, she'll be surprised if he stops by because he avoids paperwork the way a cat avoids a bath.

He needs to see her. Even though he'll get an alert if she responds to his review or to his PM, he checks the site every few minutes to see if she has. Nope. Is she avoiding him? Well, not him, but FTH? Or has she not even seen the messages? It's possible that she's not as obsessive about this as he is. Probable, not possible. Certain, not probable.

Fuck. He really, really wants to see her. Snick. He really, really wants to see Snick.

When he walks to the kitchen he can hear Alexis getting ready for school, so–as usual–he needn't wake her. He pours her some juice and puts an apple-cinnamon muffin in the microwave to warm. Two minutes later she's clattering down the stairs; she gulps down the juice and he just manages to thrust the confection into her hand as she races to the door.

"Thngsduh," she mumbles while pulling on her jacket.

"Say what?"

She swallows. "Thanks, Dad. Remember, I'm sleeping over at Kara's."

"You are?"

"Yes. Studying for our calculus test tomorrow."

"Right. If you were anyone else, especially any other teenager, I wouldn't believe it."

"True." She kisses him on the cheek and she's gone.

So, Alexis won't be home tonight. If only he had the nerve to invite Beckett over for dinner. And dessert. They could be each other's dessert. He shakes his head in mild remorse. "I need to take a shower, preferably cold," he says, heading for his bathroom and grateful that no one is there to hear him.

What the hell had she been thinking, staying up so late to finish her fan fic story? Why hadn't she done it on the weekend? She knows the answer, but still. She's had almost no sleep and not only had she been compelled to take the quickest shower ever but she'd had to forego coffee at home so that she won't be late for work. She's cutting it close now, standing in a short line at Gee Jumping Java, waiting for her latte. It's the place where Castle gets it for her; he's on her mind more than usual this morning, and since it's paperwork day he won't be coming in. She needs the fancy brew that the barista is making.

"Kate!" someone finally calls out. She grabs the takeout cup, and on the four-block walk to the precinct takes several satisfying swigs.

The hours drag by. The paperwork seems particularly boring today, although it shouldn't be. She should be relishing the fact that they've caught Lockwood–a murderous son of a bitch by any name, and it sure isn't Lockwood–and she is, but paperwork is still paperwork. She'll never admit to Castle that she doesn't blame him at all for skipping it. It's not as if he's on the payroll. She taps her pencil on the top of her empty cup. He's not on the payroll but he's every bit as effective as anyone who is. It's true. Her stomach rumbles and she checks her watch: 12:15. She's hungry and her energy level is rapidly declining. Pushing her chair away from her desk, she turns to Espo and Ryan.

"Guys? I'm going out for a quick lunch, okay? I'll be back in thirty."

"Don't rush on our account," Espo says.

"Okay. See you in a bit."

She doesn't want to sit in a noisy coffee shop or salad place and it's way too cold to eat outside. When she fishes her gloves from her coat pocket, she finds the solution: her earbuds. She stops at the nearest relatively quiet soup place, gets a bowl of the daily special, and finds a tiny table in the back. Two spoonfuls and one song later, she's woolgathering, and the wool she gathers is Castlean. She hasn't had to time to check her fan fic email, and even though she'd gone to sleep last night–correction, this morning–thinking that it didn't matter whether Castle read her last chapter, she finds herself beginning to itch for his response as she had over the summer. If he did read her story, did he comment, either publicly or privately? She switches from iTunes to her email. Four reviews–she'd be mildly disappointed, except that most people probably gave up on her long ago–but the very first one is from FTH, who also PMed her, before dawn. She looks cautiously around the busy cafe, as if she were in danger of being spied on, before opening the review. It's short and to the point, but it's a rave. She smiles into her minestrone, returns to her mailbox, and clicks on the PM. Its two sentences are sweet; its the P.S. that gets to her. When she reads it, her jaw drops, and her spoon falls to the floor. " _That was one hell of a scene. I felt like I was in the bed with them."_

Heat floods her face. It must be the soup. The soup is responsible. Definitely. Oh, who's she kidding? Not herself, that's for sure. The soup is definitely not the culprit. She bends down to get the spoon, and the heat travels south. All of her is hot now. She sits up and reads the P.S. again. Well, she thinks, now you know how I feel, Castle, whenever I read your Nikki and Rook. Now you know. Her fingers tingle with the urge to type him that very message. _Now you know how I feel._ No. Not going to happen. No way. Nix. Terrible idea. Where are the Thought Police when you need them, anyway? They should be on constant mind patrol, forbidding her from even entertaining such a notion. She'll answer him eventually, respond to his PM, but not now, in case she says something rash, insane, game-changing. She's not ready to change the game yet. Reluctantly, she logs out, goes to find a clean spoon, and finishes her soup.

The rest of the day crawls. Castle doesn't come in, of course, and she's relieved when her shift ends and she can go meet her father for a movie and an early dinner. They both like it, _The Company Men_ , about corporate types trying to cope with downsizing, and chew it over while they eat. It's a good distraction from thinking about Castle, and she feels guilty for that. Home by 9:30, she puts her sleep-deprived self to bed.

xxxxxx

It's been three weeks since Beckett finished "Bad Good Night," three weeks since he reviewed it and PMed her, and not a peep. Fan fiction silence descended and pushed his mood down with it. He's tried not to let it get to him, but it has, though he's covered it up well. Their most recent case hadn't helped. His old schoolmate, Damian Westlake, the guy who was responsible for making a homesick, friendless,14-year-old think he could write, turns out to be a murderer. He'd idolized Damian, a senior and the editor of the school literary magazine who'd told him "you have a great talent" and who had given his time to encourage and critique him. "Without Damian Westlake," he'd told Beckett miserably, "I am not a writer. Without him, I'm not me."

They closed the case a few minutes ago–Valentine's Day, for God's sake–and Beckett surprised him by asking him out for a drink.

"Shouldn't you be at a nice candlelit restaurant wearing a new dress?"

"I've got a couple of hours. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Liar," she'd said, bumping her shoulder against his.

Of course he was lying. The worst of it was that, crushed as he was to learn that his first mentor is a killer, he's even more depressed by the knowledge that it's Valentine's Day and Beckett will be on a date this evening with Dr. Motorcycle Boy.

They've just arrived at the bar, and he excuses himself to go to the men's room–not for the obvious reason but so he can give himself a talking to. Fortunately it's empty, and he can talk as much as he likes.

"Look," he says, leaning across the sink and jabbing a finger at his reflection in the remarkably clean mirror. "You're the optimist. Make the best of this." He runs his fingers through his hair, trying to make it roguishly something or other. "She invited you out. She could have used the time to go home and get ready for her _real_ date. But she didn't. So go out there and be happy. And dashing." He runs his fingers through his hair again, and tries on a smile. Good. Roguish.

"Hey," he says, sliding into the seat opposite Beckett and nodding at her glass. "You better not have started without me."

"Absolutely not. I'd never start alone without you."

Good thing there's nothing in his mouth or he'd have choked. The vision of it. "You don't?"

"Nope. Listen, sorry I didn't order for you, but I didn't know if you wanted wine or beer or something stronger."

"Definitely something stronger." He needs to drown out two visions, one of her starting alone, the other of her on a romantic date with DMB tonight.

"Tell you what," she says, pushing away her untouched wine. "I'll join you."

"Yeah? What would you like?"

"You know you corrupted me, right? When you gave me that incredible single malt when I moved to my new apartment?"

"Eighteen-year-old Aberlour?"

"That's it."

"You know why I chose it?"

"i dunno. Because it's expensive?"

"No. There are some other great single malts out there, too, but that one has real hints of vanilla, and I figured if you loved that in your coffee you might also love it in your Scotch."

Well, that's a first, she thinks. A guy who not only buys her booze that costs close to 200 bucks a bottle–okay, he can afford it, that's not the point–but chooses it because she loves vanilla. It always surprises her to realize that he pays attention to everything. And right now he needs _her_ full attention because this case has been really rough on him. A betrayal–and worse–by an old friend, and one whom he credits for his career. Talent like Castle's would have made its way to the light without Damian Freaking Westlake, but she can't say that to him, at least not yet. She shakes her head. "Yeah, well, I do love it. Never drank such pricy stuff before and now that's what I want. See? You corrupted me."

Castle catches the eye of the waiter, who comes over. "What would you like, sir?"

"I'll have what she's having."

"A glass of Malbec, right."

"Nope. A glass of what she's about to have. We'd both like Aberlour, please. Neat."

"Of course. Two Aberlours. I'll be with you in a moment."

When the waiter departs, Beckett wiggles her finger. "Remember, it's on me, Castle."

"Okay, but round two's on me."

"We're gonna have a round two?"

"With you? Definitely."

She knows he's not talking about drinks.

They're deep into round three when she dips her index finger in her drink and slowly licks it. "You know what Castle?"

Does he know what? He has no idea what what, but he doesn't care. Any what she's talking about is fine with him. And if she does that thing again with her finger he may not be responsible for his actions. "No, what?"

"Valentine's Day is stupid."

Look at her. Her cheeks are as red as a box of Valentine chocolates. "You think Valentine's Day is stupid? Why?"

"It's just commercial. Everyone makes this big deal out of it, and there's all this pressure and florists charge ten times more than usual for roses. It's stupid."

You wouldn't think it was stupid if I were your Valentine's date, he does not say. "It's romantic, Beckett. Don't you think it's nice to have an entire day devoted to romance?"

Look at him. His eyes are all sparkly. And his cheeks are so red. If she were drawing a Valentine heart, that's what color she'd make it. "No. If you really love someone you devote your life to romance. You don't need some stupid day for it. To bring attention to it."

Wow. He's bowled over. Wow. Becket is a romantic, a true romantic. _Devote your life to romance._ That's the last thing he ever thought he'd hear her say, and one hell of a first. "Wow." That's all he can say, because if he said anything else, he wouldn't stop.

After that they talk about Damian Westlake, about expectations and broken trust and disappointment. It should be gloomy but it's not. "All that stuff makes you a more interesting person, don't you think, Castle?"

"You might be right."

"I am right."

The waiter is hovering. "Can I get you anything else?"

Beckett looks up at the guy and smiles. "I'd love some eggs."

"Eggs?"

"Yeah, you know. Cluck, cluck. Eggs."

"Uh. I'm not sure we have eggs. We don't get requests for eggs."

"It's okay. Thanks, anyway. I know where to get eggs. We just need our check, please."

He looks at his watch. Shit, its seven. How did that happen? "Uh, Beckett, I think we need to pass on the eggs. Isn't it time for you to meet Doctor Motor–. Josh?"

She's already standing up and buttoning her coat. "Nope. I texted him after the last round. Said I had a friend who really needed cheering up and I couldn't make it. Turns out he couldn't, either. Come on."

"Come on?"

"We're going to go eat the best eggs in the city. The only thing they serve is breakfast, and they serve it until eight-thirty. We can just make it."

They do, and the eggs are spectacular. So are the cinnamon rolls and the turkey bacon and the coffee. "How do I not know about this place?" he says, dropping his napkin on the table.

"Because it's my secret. And now it's our secret. We're closing down the joint. I'll give you a ride home."

It's their secret? They have a secret place. Oh, God, his heart is going to explode. He's sorry when they reach his building. "Thanks, Beckett," he says, as he unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door. "You haven't convinced me that Valentine's Day is stupid. Today didn't start well, but the finish was pretty great."

"Good. I always like a strong finish. Night, Castle."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you to Roadrunnerz for the unsolicited and excellent advice re Kate and Josh on Valentine's Day: "THAT date never actually has to happen, right? RIGHT?" She was right.


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

In the end, what drove Beckett to answer Castle's five-week-old PM wasn't almost freezing to death in the storage container or the prospect of thousands and thousands of people in her beloved city dying from a bomb and its aftermath. It was the hug and the look. The hug that she and Castle had shared after he defused the bomb, and Castle's expression–first in the street and later in the celebration at the precinct. Oh, the way he had looked at her.

Espo had said, "You guys don't know how lucky you are." She and Castle had locked eyes and then he'd looked at her the way nobody had ever looked at her before and said, with what she could describe only as sweet conviction, "Actually, I do. I do." Incapable of speech, she had been rescued by the appearance of Homeland Security agent Mark Fallon, who had called them out of the room to thank them privately. After he left, Castle had looked at her again, just as he had before, and she'd thought that her knees might buckle.

"Hell of a day, huh?" Castle had said.

"Hell of a day."

"You know, I was thinking." He'd had that little smile that she'd seen only a couple of times before. He'd been about to say something important, she'd felt it. "I was thinking maybe–" but then his expression had unexpectedly changed slightly, as if he were sorry about something, and he'd said, "I should go home. Get some rest. Long day. Goodnight."

He'd walked straight to the elevator, leaving her utterly confused until she'd felt Josh at her back. Castle must have seen him coming down the hallway, and had made a graceful, considerate exit. And while Josh hugged her—with nothing like the warmth or strength of Castle—she'd watched her partner leave, looking like a defeated man. It had been a stab in the gut. She doesn't want him to be defeated, she wants him to be hopeful. But she's still a mess.

Josh had come home with her. She hadn't been able to tell him much about the case, but he'd certainly known a bit–known that she and Castle had nearly frozen to death, for one thing. She hadn't even hung up her coat before Josh's phone had rung.

"Hi. Uh, huh. Hmm. Right. Sure. Be there in fifteen."

"Going somewhere?" she'd asked.

"Yeah. Guy wants me and a couple of others to meet to organize a fundraiser for getting medical supplies to Peru."

"Right now?"

"Yeah. It's important. Bye."

And he'd kissed her on the cheek and left.

What Josh is doing is really important, but it's hard for her to compete with the entire nation of Peru. Joss is a save-the-world type, and that comes first with him. The thing is, Castle really _had_ saved the world just hours ago, when he'd ripped all the wires out of the bomb in the back of a van in midtown Manhattan, but very few people will ever know it. He had the guts, but he gets no glory, and he doesn't even mind.

What she should have done the minute that Josh had closed the door was call Castle, but she hadn't, and she'd sunk onto the sofa in regret. She'd sat in the dark for a very long time until a metaphorical light went on in her brain; she'd made a cup of coffee to fortify herself, carried it to her small desk, and turned on her laptop.

That's where she is now, eyes fixed on the PM that Castle had sent in late January. She looks at her watch: just past midnight, so it's a new month. March. What's the point of sitting and staring at the PM, since she'd memorized it ages ago?

 _Dear Snick,_

 _I'm thrilled that you finished your story and that it's such a happy conclusion. I hope that that's a reflection of your own state of mind._

 _Your fan,_

 _FTH_

 _P. S. That was one hell of a scene. I felt like I was in the bed with them._

"Happy conclusion." How like Castle not to say "happy ending." Conclusion is subtly different, and she likes the way it feels on her tongue when she says it out loud and lets the last syllable spin out. Con-CLUE-zhhhhhunnn. He'd signed off by calling himself her fan. It's adorable. The tip of her finger hovers over the two words, "your fan," and finally drops down on them as if pressing them would incise them in her mind.

She's not-so-subtly aware that she's putting off addressing the most important thing, the postscript. Specifically, the second half. "I felt like I was in bed with them." She wonders, as she hadn't the innumerable previous times that she'd contemplated the sentence, whether he had originally thought of saying, "I felt as if I were in the bed with them." When he's writing for the record, he's a stickler for grammar. But a PM to a fan fic writer isn't something for the record—only this one is, because it's part of her permanent record of their semi-anonymous online conversations. Had he dashed this off? Had he wanted to sound casual?

Why does it matter? She's deflecting, because she doesn't want to think about the hug. The hug and the way he'd looked at her. She wants to call him up and say, "I'm Snick, and when I wrote that I felt like I was in bed with you." But she can't call him, and God knows she can't write that to him. She takes a sip of coffee and shudders. Yecch. It's cold. She should zap it in the microwave, or make a fresh cup.

But before she can do either "I felt like I was in bed with you" rises up in her mind. Wow. It's sultry, it's insistent. it doesn't go away. Suddenly she doesn't need an infusion of hot coffee. Despite the snow that began earlier this evening, despite her apartment's inadequate radiators, it's quite warm in here. She pushes the hair off her forehead, clicks on the reply link, and begins to type.

 _Dear FTH,_

 _I'm thrilled that you were thrilled that I finished my story, and that you liked it, too. I should have thanked you for your effusive review and for your PM ages ago; please forgive me._

 _My state of mind is a lot better–so much better–than it was over the summer. I'm more hopeful now, for something better around the bend in the road I'm traveling._

 _I've missed talking with you. I hope that you're happy._

 _Your friend, Snick_

Friend? Should she say friend? Pen pal? What about keyboard pal? He might like that, keyboard pal. What the hell. She'd never signed off any of their PMs, except one, where she'd said, "Night, FTH." Nothing special about that. She deletes "Your friend" and replaces it with "Yours." It might sound a little formal, but it's better than just "Snick." She hits send. He'll answer, she's sure of it. Probably not tonight. She hopes that he had a quiet evening with his daughter and had gone to bed. That's what she does now, goes to bed, thinking that maybe one day if she pulls herself together she can be in bed with him.

She oversleeps not only because she'd stayed up late but because the snow is falling so heavily that it has almost silenced traffic and is muffling every other city sound. There's no time for anything but a quick shower, and she dresses hurriedly. The subway is packed, but it's fast, and she gets to the precinct before the boys. She takes the opportunity to check her fan fic email on her phone: nothing from Castle/feelingtheheat. Okay. That's okay. But she needs caffeine, and she's grateful that she's finally mastered Castle's Concorde of coffeemakers in the break room. At 9:00 he texts her that he won't be in today. She tries not to feel down about it.

Castle is using the storm as an excuse to stay home, allegedly to keep Alexis company–though in fact she's taking advantage of this school snow day to go out with some friends–but really to mope. The last thing that he'd seen at the Twelfth yesterday was Beckett in the arms of DMB, and it's an image he needs to purge. It's almost noon, the snow heavier than ever, before he goes into his office to turn on his computer. He looks disconsolately at the screen and then–. Whoa. Whoa. There it is. "PM: SoNotNikki1979 - You have received a message from: SoNotNikki1979." He reads it. She's more hopeful. More hopeful about him or about Josh? After all, the person she hugged most recently was Josh, not him. But that was a Hall of Fame hug they'd had, he and Beckett had had, in the middle of Eleventh Avenue, wasn't it? But then she'd hugged Josh. He reads it again. Wait. How had he missed the closing of her PM? Stunned, he reads it again, and then a fourth time, and a fifth. There it is, every time he looks: she'd ended the PM _"Your Snick."_ His Snick. She's his Snick! That's a Hall of Fame first. A grand slam into the Hall of Fame. He's rounding the bases in his head, his fist raised exultantly over his head.

Beckett gets her lunch–a bag of bite-size Oreos, because the only alternative is some dubious-looking chip with artificial barbeque flavoring–from the vending machine, and checks her fan fic email on her phone again. When she sees that Castle has responded, she can't stifle her smile. Wanting to read in relative private, she goes to the back stairs, walks several steps down so that she's hard to spot from the floor above or below, and clicks on his message.

Oh, fuck. Fucking fuck. She tilts sideways and smacks her head repeatedly against the grimy brick wall before straightening up again. There are many things that you should do when you're firing off a PM–especially late at night after you've been a nanosecond away from vaporization by a bomb–and first among them is to read, or at least glance at, what you've written before you hit send. She winces, and closes her eyes. The unconscious deletions of the letter s and a comma had done her in. She hadn't typed _"Yours, Snick,"_ but _"Your Snick."_ His Snick. She'd said that she was his Snick. Never mind that she is his Snick, he shouldn't know it. She opens one eye and reads her PM and his reply again.

 _You're my Snick? Yes! Best New Year's present ever, even if the new year is two months old. Does this mean that I'm your FTH? But I need a better name. FTH sounds like the air being let out a tire, and I don't want the air going out of me because it might take my happiness out with it._ _Besides, who wants to be thought of as a flat tire?_

Her stomach hurts, and the sight of the little bag of Oreos on her lap makes her feel ill. She can't answer this, she just can't. She's probably killed his hopes for any future with her–that's the way he'd looked in the elevator, completely defeated–and if she answers this she'll be fueling his fantasy in someone who doesn't exist. No, who does exist, but can't make herself come out from behind the anonymity of fan fiction and say, "Here I am. I'm yours." She hates herself for it, but she's also a realist: until she can deal with her obsession with her mother's murder, she's no good to him. For him. For them. And she hates herself for not having the courage to tell him that. She pushes herself up from the cold, hard step, and goes back to work. She leaves the cookies in the break room, and plows through the rest of the day. At home that night, she makes a pledge to herself not to log on to her fan fic account or the email associated with it until she's ready to talk with Castle. Really talk with Castle, with her heart and mind wide open, unencumbered, unfettered.

xxxxxxx

All through the snow and cold rain of March, all through the wildly varied weather of April, Castle looks for a response to his PM. It never comes. He sends nonsensical and (he hopes) charming little PMs to her, but she remains silent, and he can't figure out why. Then, exactly two months after her "Your Snick" PM, things change. Not in the fan fic world, but the real one–at least the one involving the two of them. The day had been fine, but the night? Horrific. Mike Royce–Beckett's former training officer, mentor, partner, and maybe more–had been found murdered in an alley. Both Castle and Montgomery had tried to get her to leave as soon as she'd arrived, but she'd insisted on staying. Every bit of her, from her body language to her tone of voice, had been like forged steel. It had taken their team very little time to identify and trace a suspect, but the suspect had gone back to Los Angeles before they could apprehend him. When Montgomery forbade her to work the case and also handed it to the LAPD, the justifiably outraged Beckett had taken some vacation time and flown West. So had he.

They'd stayed in a hotel suite–her bedroom at one end, his at the other–that he'd persuaded her to share with him, and now, case wrapped up, they're at the airport in the premier flyers' lounge, waiting for their flight. Beckett has gone to the ladies' room and he's in a chair, head in his hands, going over and over the events of the last 48 hours. His mental photo storage bank is overflowing with images of her on this trip, but three stand out. In ascending order of importance, the first is from late yesterday afternoon, when she had chased down the suspect, Russell Ganz. It wasn't until Castle and the others had heard a shot that they'd known where she was: under the Santa Monica pier, holding her gun on Ganz after wounding him just badly enough that he hadn't been able to stand up in the damp sand. He'd approached her from behind, so he hadn't seen her face until after Ganz had been cuffed, but he'd been terrified that she might kill him. He hadn't been able to read her expression, not really. She hadn't been impassive, just quiet. She'd looked a little rueful; she'd caught the bastard who'd killed Royce, but it hadn't brought Royce back. He hadn't the nerve or the heart to ask her anything but, "You okay?" And all she'd said was, "Yeah." They'd gone to the LAPD precinct to do some paperwork and it was midnight by the time they'd arrived at their hotel. "Night, Castle," she'd said softly, and gone to her room. This morning, right before they'd left for LAX, he'd summoned the guts to ask her–though not to her face, because her back was turned–"So, how close did you come? With Ganz?"

She'd waited a few beats before turning around, and had said, "Let's go home, Castle."

Let's go home. It hits him for the first time, though it should have before, should have the minute they'd seen Royce dead in an alley, not unlike Johanna Beckett. What hits him so hard is the realization that Kate has to live with another ghost now. It's very different than her mother's, but a ghost nonetheless. The ghost of someone who had meant a great deal to her.

The second image, which he wishes that he'd caught on his cell phone, is of her emerging from the hotel pool where they'd been trying to set up Ganz. Castle's adolescence may be long gone, but that vision of her rising from the water has permanently redefined wet dream for him. She'd been an X-rated Botticelli's Venus, despite the fact that unlike Botticelli's goddess she'd not been nude but in a bathing suit. Much, much sexier than nude. Although. He squeezes his eyes shut at the memory. He'd almost inhaled the little umbrella in his drink, which might have choked him, but he'd have died with the retinal imprint of her perfect body glistening with water, and the face and eyes of a magnificent jungle cat about to pounce on her prey.

The third, and most significant, is from night before last, when the two of them had been sitting on the sofa in the suite, building theory, and she'd suddenly turned sweetly wistful about Royce. "I was so in awe of him, Castle, when I first met him. I just hung on his every word. And then, later, I realized he was just making up stories to mess with me." She'd stopped then, She was grieving. "I can't believe that I'm never gonna see him again."

He'd held off before saying anything, and tried to pull her away from her sadness. "You know what I thought when I first met you? That you were a mystery I was never gonna solve. Even now, after spending all this time with you, I'm– I'm still amazed at the depths of your strength, your heart." Oh, no. Speaking of heart? His had been on his sleeve right then, impossible to miss. But he'd wanted, does want, her to know this. He'd had to decide whether to stop there. He hadn't. "And your hotness," he'd said. Should he have or shouldn't he have? Had it sounded like he was joking? No. The air between them was impossibly both still and electric. He'd half expected lightning bolts to come through the ceiling.

She'd smiled and said, "You're not so bad yourself, Castle." He's very good at reading people, and right then he'd read her perfectly. Everything about her had been saying yes to him, until the moment that they'd looked at each other seriously. And then she'd said no. A not-said-outright no, but a no. She'd stood up and said, "I should go. It's late. Goodnight."

He'd watched her go to her room, then called, "Kate." He'd heard the ache in his voice, felt the desperation, but she'd said, "Goodnight, Castle," and closed her door. He'd frozen in place briefly, willing her to come back out, but it hadn't happened, and he'd gone to his room, too. He'd stayed awake for hours, tweaking the scene, changing the lines, altering the body language, but the outcome had never varied. Every time he'd rolled onto his back or turned on his side he'd tried to remind himself: she's still with Josh. He shouldn't have made a move on her, however tentative.

"Castle? Castle? Are you okay?"

He feels her touch him lightly on the shoulder. He hadn't realized that his eyes were still closed. "What?"

"Do you feel all right? You're all hunched over and you had your head in your hands."

Time for a good smile. He hopes he sounds reassuring. "Fine. Just thinkin', Lincoln."

"Yeah? Know what I'm thinkin'? I'm thinkin' it's time for us to board, Mister Fly First Class."

"That a complaint?"

"Nope."

"Good."

She precedes him into the plane, and as he walks behind her he finds that he's feeling better. They'd come so close, as close as they ever had, to taking a big step before she'd pulled back. But the look that she'd shared with him right before will buoy him through the spring. And who knows? Spring is a time for new things.

They've been airborne for only an hour, but he's had a glass of wine and a ramekin of macadamia nuts, and exhaustion hits him. "Sorry, Beckett," he says with a yawn. "I'm zonked. Didn't get much sleep last night. Gonna pass out on you."

"I can handle it, Castle. Sweet dreams."

"Thanks." Before he passes out he wonders if he'll dream of her getting out of the pool.

He hadn't gotten a lot of sleep? Neither had she. She'd come so close to knocking on his door, but she'd chickened out. When she's sure that he's fast asleep–God, he looks so cute, his head rolled to the side, his hair a little ruffled–she slips Royce's letter out of her purse. She's read it so often that it's deeply creased, and after she reads it again she looks at Castle. He'd known about the letter. When Lanie had handed it to her in the alley after finding it in Royce's pocket, he'd said, "Is it about the case?" She'd told him no. He'd never brought it up again. Not once. That's a first. The nosiest, most inquisitive man she has ever known, a guy who ignores boundaries, hadn't asked her what Royce had written her. She hadn't known that he had that much self-control. His kindness must have been the difference. His kindness to her is something else that has no boundaries.

She reads the end of the letter one more time, Royce's voice distinct in her ears. "It's clear that you and Castle have something real. And you're fighting it. But trust me, putting the job ahead of your heart is a mistake. Risking our hearts is why we're alive. The last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder if only." She watches Castle sleeping. For once Royce hadn't been messing with her. He must have known that he wasn't going to make it out alive, and this letter was his valediction to her. Royce had been wrong about a lot of things, but he'd been right about a lot, too. Josh had called her yesterday to say he was on his way to Peru. Maybe it's time for her to risk her heart. When Josh gets back, she's going to end it with him, and start taking some little steps closer to Castle. Spring is a time for hope, and Castle is the one who'd brought hope back into her life. Time to begin acting on it.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for all your support. The next chapter will be set in 3x24, "Knockout." I hope to be post it next weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US, and to those elsewhere, thanks for reading!


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The Andes. The freaking Andes. Just for once couldn't Josh administer aid to people desperately in need of it at home, and not an eight-hour flight away? There were plenty of them right here in Manhattan. Or the South Bronx. Or Camden, New Jersey, if he insists on going to another state. If he's hellbent on the mountains, why not the Appalachians?

He was supposed to come home ten days ago. Then he delayed it, and delayed it again on Wednesday, when he'd texted that he'd changed his flight to Saturday. Today. The only good thing about all this is that it's solidified her decision to part ways with him. She's mentally written what she's going to say when she sees him. His plane landed almost two hours ago–she'd checked it twice online–but she still hasn't heard a peep from him. If Castle were returning to the city from somewhere, anywhere, he'd have texted her at least five times by now. She can imagine them popping up on her phone every few minutes.

 _"_ _Plane's at the gate. B13. Isn't that a Bingo number?"_

 _"_ _This terminal is insane. Is there a secret holiday that I don't know about?"_

 _"_ _Have you noticed that a lot of people suddenly have orange suitcases?"_

 _"_ _In a taxi headed home. I hope. The driver is taking unknown side streets of deepest Astoria. You may have to come rescue me in a squad car. Lights and sirens."_

 _"_ _Did you miss me annoying you?"_

If he really had sent that last text, she'd have said yes. Or maybe no, to see how much he protested that she really had. And if he were lost in deepest Astoria? Damn right she'd rescue him, lights and sirens.

But her phone has remained silent. She's jittery, so of course she makes coffee, and on her second sip she hears a knock. When she looks through the peephole she sees a familiar face with a two-week beard. What the hell? She yanks open the door.

"Josh?"

"Surprise!" He brushes by her, dumps his bag on the floor, and envelops her in a hug.

She loathes surprises and he knows it. "Hi."

"Happy to see me?"

"Of course." That should be a three-word sentence, with "not" at the end, because she's ticked off at him. "How was your trip?" she asks, breaking away from the hug. He's yammering away about Peru as he walks to the sofa and she trails after him. He extends his legs, props his boots on the coffee table–something that's always irritated her, and why hadn't she told him?–and keeps right on talking. She drops in with the occasional "mmhmm," "wow," or "really" until he finally looks up at her and pats the seat next him.

"Sit down with me, Kate. I haven't seen you in ages."

Yeah, no kidding. No "How are you?" or "I missed you." There's no point in sitting down when she wants to get this over with right now, before she loses her nerve and her break-up script deserts her. Besides, standing gives her an advantage over him, which is what she needs at the moment.

"Listen, Josh?"

His smile recedes. "Yeah?"

"It's fantastic what you're doing. Helping people in terrible situations. It is. I admire you for it. But the thing is, you're never here."

"Jesus, Kate, I'm–"

"Please, let me finish. I understand that you have to be away, you're compelled to be, but I need someone who can be around more. Your job is wildly stressful, but so is mine, and I need someone I can de-stress with, you know? You and I are perfect examples of ships that pass in the night, but I need a safe harbor, too. Sorry if that sounds corny." Shit, is this lame? If she'd rehearsed this out loud she might have realized it. She presses on. "I don't regret any of our time together, but it's not enough. And you should be with someone who doesn't need what I need. You deserve that."

"So, this is it?" His mouth is twitching even after he's finished the question. She can see his muscles tightening, from jaw to thighs. "This is it? Your goddamn welcome home speech? You can at least be honest, for Christ's sake. You owe me that."

"I am being honest."

"Bullshit." He gets to his feet, his face purpling. "What was it that sealed the deal with you and Castle, huh?"

"There's no deal between Castle and me."

"Bullshit again." HIs voice raises several decibels. "While I was in Peru doing something really important, and the two of you were in Los Angeles working on that case–"

She hears contempt when he says "case." He almost spits the word out, as if it were worthless, as if what she does is worthless.

"Did he work on you then? Use the time and place to work you up in bed?"

That she hadn't expected, and she feels as if she's been punched in the stomach. "Not a chance." She's afraid her voice is unsteady.

"If I look in the bathroom, will I find his aftershave on your sink? Will I? If I sit on your bed will I smell it on your sheets?"

She's not unsteady now, she's furious. "Fuck you, Josh."

"Fuck me?" He's leaning in, his face so close that she can feel his breath and see the tiny tic he can't control at the corner of his eye. "Fuck me? Not while you're fucking Castle."

She's already deviated from her planned speech, and now she does something that she's never done to anyone. She slaps him hard across the face. "Leave. Now."

A moment later he slams the door so forcefully behind him that the vibration knocks one of her favorite mugs onto the floor and it shatters. "Worth it," she says later, as she sweeps the shards into the dustpan. It's only 9:30, but she goes to bed. She's relieved to have severed ties with Josh, but his reaction was so unsettling and vituperative that she's exhausted.

It's the longest, soundest sleep that she's had in years, and she's grateful not to be heading to the precinct but driving upstate to pay her weekly visit to the hit man known as Hal Lockwood. The hour-plus trip lets her mull over last night, and consider what she should tell Castle and when. Maybe she'd been naive, but she'd really expected the conversation with Josh to be straightforward, even calm. There'd never been any commitment on either side. But in the light of day–and it's a beautiful May morning–it occurs to her that Josh is used to getting his own way. His altruism runs deep, but it's limited to his professional life, not his personal one. He's also a surgeon, and like many surgeons, he always assumes that he's right.

The exit for the prison is half a mile ahead, so she flicks on her blinker and changes lanes. Maybe she'll get something out of this son of a bitch Lockwood today. She's been coming here for months, trying to get him to lead her to her mother's killer. Maybe it's the spring weather that's making her optimistic, but she thinks that she's close now. Maybe she'll finally break him this summer, and then she can let her heart break all the way open, and invite Castle in.

She parks in the prison lot and goes inside, only to learn from Officer Ryker, who always greets her, that Lockwood has just been moved from his high-security, restricted cell to the prison's general population. Her quiet day explodes. Minutes later she and several guards find Lockwood standing over the body of Gary McCallister, whom he had just shanked. McCallister, one of the crooked cops who had helped frame Joe Pulgatti and thus contributed to the death of her mother. McCallister, the man who told Castle and her that they had woken the dragon. As she looks at Lockwood's blood-soaked hands, it occurs to her that the dragon is more than awake now: he's howling, and she's glad. She's that much closer to closing her mother's case.

But then morning turned to night, literally and metaphorically. That's all it the time it had taken, a half-rotation of the Earth on its axis, to destroy her hope. That evening, she and Castle had gone to Lockwood's arraignment because she'd wanted to poke the dragon again. The proceedings should have been quick and straightforward; afterwards, maybe she'd ask Castle out for a drink, inch forward a little. It hadn't happened. None of it. In the flash of a grenade, Lockwood, assisted by men disguised as cops, was uncuffed and on the run. By the time she'd made sure that Castle was uninjured and chased Lockwood to the roof, he'd been taking off in a helicopter. She'd emptied her gun, and knew that a least one shot had hit the chopper, but it hadn't made a difference. After that, she'd sent Castle home, filed a report, and gone to her apartment. Sleep had never come and at four she'd given up, taken a shower, dressed, and gone to the precinct.

Discouraged as she'd been, she'd kept at it. New evidence indicated that McCallister was merely the means for Lockwood to escape, and his real target was still at large. It hadn't taken long for her and Castle to figure out who it was, in theory: the third bad cop. The X side of the Raglan-McCallister-X triangle. The one who knows who's behind the killing of Johanna Beckett, and is therefore a danger to the boss. If only they knew who either mystery man is. She'd briefly been hopeful when the New Jersey state police had found the stolen helicopter that McCallister had used, but had fallen back into a pit when she'd discovered that it had been thoroughly cleaned with bleach. No DNA had survived. Another dead end. She'd said good night to Castle and the boys at the hangar and gone home, as despairing as she'd ever been.

Things had gotten worse today. Ryker, the sweet guard at the prison who'd always joked with her and put her at her ease, had been found murdered. He hadn't been so sweet after all: up to his neck in debt, he'd taken $50,000–untraceable, and routed to his bank through Dubai–to arrange Lockwood's transfer at the prison. And then he'd been shot in the head, at home. Ryker had been another pawn sacrificed in this sick high-stakes game. She knows the chess master is that third cop. She knows it. Ryan and Esposito don't believe her, but she doesn't care. She's right, and she demands that they keep looking. For the third night in a row she goes home in a bleak mood, but this time she's also furious.

xxxx

Scowling in the mirror of the men's room at the precinct, Castle is berating himself for insisting that Beckett can handle the pressure of the case. He'd wanted to believe it, still does want to, but he knows that she's strung so tight that she's about to snap. Last night he'd had the most surprising unannounced visitor of his life. Jim Beckett. "This man she's chasing," Jim had asked, his face etched with anxiety. "How dangerous is he?"

"He's a trained killer." Way to go, he'd thought too late; don't sugarcoat it. You could have been honest without being so blunt. It's hard to imagine the hell that Jim has gone through, and the fresh hell he's facing. If Alexis is 15 minutes late getting home, he wants to start calling hospitals–almost had, on a couple of occasions. And what is that in comparison to what Jim has to live with every day?

"What happens when she finds him?" Jim had asked. "I've already lost my wife over this." It had been the desperate appeal of one father to another, Jim clearly suspecting–and rightly so–that Rick is in love with his daughter, Kate. "Don't let her throw her life away."

Jim wanted him to get Kate to stop this suicidal chase. Simple as that. But not so simple, because Beckett is the single most complicated person he's ever known. And private. And stubborn. Still, he'd had all day to do something and he's done nothing. They'd been very busy because of the murder of the prison guard Ryker, but he'd had ample opportunity to pull her aside and say something. He hadn't. Later, when she'd borne down on the third cop theory and Ryan and Espo had challenged her, he still hadn't done anything.

"We went through everything," Espo had said. "We looked at every cop we could find who could've worked with them. None of them are our third guy."

"Well, then check it again. And when you're done with that, check it again." She'd been crackling with rage.

Then Ryan had made the mistake of saying, "Beckett, we want him as bad as you."

That had put her over the edge. "The hell you do. Nobody wants him as bad as I do, okay? Nobody. So, check it again." With that, she'd stormed home, her bag overflowing with case files.

He should have gone after her, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd stayed late with the boys, going over and over and over things. He'd called her several times, but she'd never responded. When Espo had asked him how she was, he'd said, "She'll be fine. She always is."

The hell she was. The hell she is. Why had he kept insisting that she's fine? Because he's a coward. Because he doesn't want to face the truth that she's soul-deep in her mother's case again, and in danger, because he'd sent her there. Because he doesn't want to face her and have her turn on him, because that's exactly what she'll do.

The only upside, and it's important, is that by chance–thanks to the improbable combination of a cold beer bottle on and his knowledge of old typewriters–he and the boys had found doctored police reports that should be an enormous help in ferreting out the third cop. They'd showed the captain, who'd authorized Ryan and Espo to get on it. Castle, however, had stayed behind to talk to Montgomery, who'd put a protective detail on Beckett and assured him that they were good.

"Good enough to stop Lockwood? Look, she's not gonna stop, and the next time he sees her, one of them is gonna die. Take her off the case." He'd had the balls to demand that of the captain, but not enough to run after Beckett.

Montgomery had filled him in on his history with Beckett, how he had known from the very start that nothing he could have done would have stopped her looking into her mother's murder. And then he'd shocked him even more than Jim Beckett had 24 hours earlier by saying, "I cannot make Beckett stand down, Castle. I never could. And the way I figure, the only one who can is you."

That's what had driven him here, to the relative quiet of the men's room. "Man up," he tells his reflection. "Kate Beckett's father and the man who has been like a father to her are putting her life in your hands. Move your sorry ass and go make your case." He splashes some water on his face, pats it off with a rough paper towel, and puts on his mental armor.

As soon as he enters Beckett's apartment, he lets her know about the developments in the case. She bristles, and asks why he hadn't just phoned her. It's a reasonable question, and when he hesitates, she ups the bristliness to near hostility, holding her gun at her side.

"Castle, if you got something to say, just please say it."

This time he doesn't stall. "Beckett, everyone associated with this case is dead. Everyone. First your mom and her colleagues, then Raglan, then McCallister. You know they're coming for you next."

When she counters that there's a protective detail on her, he tell her it's not enough. "I don't think we're gonna win this."

That doesn't sit well.

"Castle, they killed my mother. What do you want me to do here?"

"Walk away. They're gonna kill you, Kate. And if you don't care about that, at least think about how that's going to affect the people that love you. You really want to put your dad through that? And what about Josh?"

Maybe it was mentioning Josh that did it, but now she's barely suppressing her rage. "And what about you, Rick?"

Oh. Oh. He hadn't expected that, and he fumbles. "Well, of course I don't want anything to happen to you. I'm your partner. I'm your friend."

"Is that what we are?"

He can't take this back and forth anymore, this too-careful speech, so he takes off the filters and the gloves. "All right, you know what? I don't know what we are. We kiss, and then we never talk about it. We nearly die frozen in each other's arms, but we never talk about it. So, no, I got no clue what we are. I know I don't want to see you throw your life away."

Each time she withdraws or turns away, he goes after her, closes the physical gap between them.

"Yeah, well, last time I checked, it was my life, not your personal jungle gym. And for the past three years, I have been running around with the school's funniest kid, and it's not enough."

If she'd thrown acid on his face it wouldn't have hurt the way that had. He won't let up. "This isn't about your mother's case anymore. This is about you needing a place to hide. Because you've been chasing this thing so long, you're afraid to find out who you are without it."

"You don't know me, Castle. You think you do, but you don't."

Another shot of acid, one that penetrated his skin and entered his veins. "I know you crawled inside your mother's murder and didn't come out. I know you hide there, the same way you hide in these nowhere relationships with men you don't love." Oh, Jesus, maybe that was too much. He has to soften this a little, soften what he's saying to the woman he loves so that maybe she'll listen to him. "You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy. But you're afraid."

It doesn't work.

"You know what we are, Castle? We are over. Now get out."

When he runs down the stairs of her building and out into the night, he can hardly breathe. He leans against the wall and gasps as he tries to process the destruction, in the course of a couple of minutes, of what they'd somehow stitched together over during the last three years. "Our first fight," he says. "Our first goddamn fight and that's it. It's over. It's over and the next time I'll see her she'll be in a coffin." He staggers to the curb and throws up into the gutter.

The next thing that he's aware of is the sharp voice of his mother. He has no memory of how he got home, or what he's done since he got here.

"Oh, my God! What the hell's going on here?"

It must be very late because she's in her dressing gown, and apparently he had just drained a glass of Scotch and thrown it at a large mock up of _Heat Rises_. He can taste the alcohol in his mouth, along with the bile, but he and she sit down for the kind of mother-son conversation they should have had a long time ago. He admits his anxieties about Beckett, and she tries to calm him. He persuades her to go back to sleep, and he goes to bed soon after, though not after another 50-proof infusion.

As soon as he's awake the next morning, he calls Beckett. She'd thrown him out last night, but he's not going to be dissuaded from trying to get her to step back from the investigation. It's his debt to her father, to her captain, and to her. He phones every ten minutes, and every single time she declines the call. Staying at home is driving him wild, but he can't, won't, go to the precinct. By dinnertime–not that he has any appetite for dinner, and he's relieved that Alexis is staying at a friend's to study for finals tomorrow–he's lost count of how often he's called her. It must be 50, at least.

He jumps when his phone rings: it's Montgomery. The captain sketches in the events of the day, says that they might have a lead, and follows that with an odd request. He wants Castle to meet him at the hangar where the stolen helicopter had been found. "Come now. And don't tell Beckett," he says.

"I can't. She's not speaking to me."

"So I gather. We need to keep her out of this. Just meet me there, but stay out of sight, all right? I'll shout out to you when I need you. Got it?"

"Uh–"

"Got it?"

"Yessir."

On the way to the hangar he calls Espo and Ryan, but gets only voicemail. He texts Ryan, asks what's up, and gets a reply. "We're out on a lead. Trying to track down 3rd cop. Later." A quarter of an hour after that he's standing in the shadows on the far side of the hangar. He can hear Montgomery and Beckett talking, but he's too far away to make out what they're saying. Why is she here? Wasn't the point to keep her out of whatever the hell is going? It's a May evening, but he feels as cold as he had in the back of that truck with Beckett months ago. He feels as if there's ice between each of his vertebrae.

"Castle!" It's the captain. "Get her out of here."

He steps into the murky light, sees Montgomery holding a gun and Beckett looking as if she's a second away from tears.

"Captain, I don't–"

Montgomery cuts him off. "Don't argue. That's why I called you. Get her out of here, now!"

There's an SUV in the distance, headed for them.

He's never seen or heard Beckett like this. She's pleading with Montgomery, telling him repeatedly that she forgives him. For what? What is there to forgive? She keeps telling him he doesn't have to do this. Do what? He feels lost and helpless, but when Montgomery barks at him again to get her out, and he lifts her up and carries through the door. She's crying and screaming the whole way, flailing and kicking her legs against him. He hears car doors opening and closing, and a series of footsteps. Three people? Four? He realizes that it must be Lockwood and his posse. When he and Beckett are safely out of sight, he puts his hand gently over her mouth, shushes her, and lies as he tells her again and again, "Everything's okay. Everything's all right," when it patently isn't.

Lockwood is loud enough for him to hear, and he's demanding to know where Kate is. Montgomery doesn't yield. A moment ago he'd told her, "This is my spot. This is where I stand." In Castle's head he's screaming, "What did you do, Roy? What did you do?" And what is he doing now? Sacrificing himself for Beckett? Why?

And then it hits him. If he was cold before, he's frozen now. The third cop. It was Montgomery. Roy. He'd have been a young man then, maybe had a new baby. Just starting out. Needed money. He's atoning, his life for Beckett's. His life for her mother's life. But Beckett forgives him, as she'd forgiven Royce-except the stakes are so much higher here. The highest. She doesn't want this, doesn't want Montgomery's blood on her hands, because that must be how she sees it. She just wants Lockwood and his master. No wonder she's inconsolable. He hears shots, then silence, shots and more silence. Whatever happened is finished. He releases her, and she races out. He stares after her at the carnage. No one is moving except Beckett, who is sobbing over Montgomery's body, her forehead pressed against his chest.

As he approaches quietly, not wanting to intrude on her private grief but aware of the need to get them both away from the scene, he sees a cell phone, screen side up, on the concrete. It's hers. She must have dropped it when she confronted Roy. He picks it and reads the text that had arrived a few minutes ago. It confirms his sickening epiphany: "3rd cop-It's Montgomery!" After pocketing the phone, he hastily concocts a credible story, in case they can't slip away in time, about why he and Beckett are here. And then he phones the boys.

Over the next four days, he, Beckett, Espo, and Ryan stitch together their story and sew it up tight. Montgomery will have died a hero. "We owe it to him," Kate says when they're gathered in her living room. "All of us." No one disagrees.

At first there is a fragile truce between him and Beckett, but she begins to lean on him more each hour. Each freighted hour when they deal with interrogations and funeral arrangements and making sure that Evelyn Montgomery and the children are looked after. It's Evelyn who asks that Beckett deliver the eulogy. "Of course," she says to the widow. "Of course I will. Of course. It will be an honor."

The weather is perfect on the day they come to bury their captain. Blue sky, bright sunshine, a puff of a breeze. He wishes that there were thunder and lightning and hail, God–if God really exists–making his wrath evident. After he and the other pall bearers lay the flag-draped coffin on the stand at the grave, his partner walks towards the podium. Montgomery's widow is weeping over the folded flag, now a tight triangle in her hands, and Beckett begins to speak. She looks so frail, but steadfast, as she talks about her mentor. The captain, she says, believed that "there are only battles. And in the end, the best you could hope for is to find a place to make your stand." She looks at him as she says that, eyes bright under the visor of her cap.

Resolved not to break down, he looks away from her and sees a glint in the distance, a tiny flash that seems to be coming from a row of tombstones. It's a gun. It's light bouncing off the stock of a rifle. He throws himself at her at the same moment that he hears the pop of the gun.

"Kate!"

The impact knocks the cap from her head, and they both fall to the lush green grass. The green grass that should be as black as the mourning clothes he's wearing. Green is for hope, and there's nothing hopeful here. Kate has taken the bullet. She looks stunned, but she doesn't make a sound as he cradles her head, horrified as he notices her white glove covered in blood.

"Kate, please. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay? Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate."

She can see Castle, his face just inches from hers. She can hear him, too, but she can't respond. He told her that he loved her. It's the first time he's told her that he loves her, and it's the last thing she'll ever hear. The last thing, because she's been shot in the chest, and there's no surviving that. The pain takes over and she closes her eyes. It's the end.

TBC


End file.
